DragonEye, PI MuseItUp Category:  Fantasy Publisher: MuseItUp Pages: 265 Copyright: April 2012 If you love adrenalin-rushing action... If you love dangerous romance in exotic locations... If you love nail biting suspense... If you love laughing so hard you draw stares... Then you'll love Live and Let Fly! The magic is Faerie.  The technology, Mundane.  When they meet, the survival of the world rests in one dragon's…er…claws.  See Vern as you've never seen him before!  For a dragon detective with a magic-slinging nun as a partner, saving the worlds gets routine. So, when the US government hires Vern and Sister Grace to recover stolen secrets for creating a new Interdimensional Gap-- secrets the US would like to keep, thank you—Vern sees a chance to play Dragon-Oh-Seven. No human spy, however, ever went up against a Norse goddess determined to use those secrets to rescue her husband. Sigyn will move heaven and earth to get Loki—and use the best and worst of our world against anyone who tries to stop her. It's super-spy spoofing at its best with exotic locations, maniacal middle-managers, secret agent men, teen rock stars in trouble, man-eating animatronics, evil overlords and more! Excerpt Charlie started to close the door behind us, his other hand gripping the handle of his dagger so tightly I could hear the leather wrap on the handle strain, as we listened to the footsteps coming our way, slow, bored. My predator's instincts rose; then I had a great idea. I shook my head at Charlie and winked, and he shuffled out of my way, leaving the door ajar. I settled myself with my back to the door, just inside the shadows and let the script play itself out: CLUELESS MINION enters Stage Left. He pauses, hearing a noise, but does not report it. Instead, he fondles the stars on his name tag and moves toward the empty hallway, his mind on adding another. (Probably saying, "I was proactive today!") CLUELESS pauses at door, hesitating. He stands and, back to the door, reaches for his walkie-talkie. Suddenly, a well-muscled and gorgeously scaled tail whips out from the crack in the door and wraps itself around his neck. He only has time to grab ineffectively at the tail before he's drawn into the darkness. The door shuts behind him. Pan shot of the empty hallway. FADE TO BLACK I slammed my victim on the floor and pinned him with my forelegs, then I leaned my face in nice and slow, making sure he got a good look at my fangs before he saw my eyes. "Where's the girl?" I growled low and menacingly. "Wh-What g-g-girl?" Charlie crouched down by Stutterboy and glanced at his name tag. "Look, Philip, we're in a bit of a hurry. We know Rhoda Dakota's being held captive somewhere nearby. Now you can be a good survivor and tell us where…or you can be dinner." "I-I don't—" "Phil A. Minion." I mused and drooled a bit for effect. I live for these moments, I really do. I licked his cheek and asked Charlie, "Can I have fries with that?" "Why not? This is Idaho."

Hysterically Funny!
Ms. Fabian has a wonderful sense of humor and this book will keep you laughing. This is the second Dragoneye PI book, but it can be read alone. For maximum enjoyment, read Magic, Mensa and Mayhem first.

Some time ago through a combination of a nuclear accident and a magic mishap, an interdimentional gate opened between the world and the fairy world in a small town in Colorado. It was called the GAP and it's effects were fairly localized. Travel to and from the Fairy World is tightly controlled; however, not everyone liked that.

While visiting his girl friend, the teen sensation Rhoda Dakota, on the ser of her first film, Live & Let Fly, Charlie the Duke's Herald is mugged and has his courier bag stolen. Then, Rhonda herself is kidnapped in an effort to force Charlie to devolve the information. But a Duke's Herald doesn't know what he carries. Soon Vern & Sister Grace of Dragoneye PI team up with Charlie and BILE (the Bureau for Interdimensional Law Enforcement) to stop the mega-maniac trying to create another interdemensional gate and rescue Rhoda.

In a world where elves are long lived, verbose and fashion challenged, where dragons have the wisdom of the ages but aren't recognized as "persons" by the US Immigration Service and fairy nuns can cast spells through the Power of God, anything can and does happen. See what happens when a big corporation takes HR classes just a bit too far! There's an evil but gifted engineer, extremely realistic robotics, an alphabet soup of spies (not just Rhoda's movie) and a demigoddess on the rampage! Vern & Sister Grace even go undercover!

Yeah, This Was Fun.
By John Konecsni, http://apiusman.blogspot.com/2012/04/review-live-and-let-fly.html

Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Review: Live and Let Fly.

Karina Fabian has done some novels that could only be qualified as interesting. She's written theology, Catholic science fiction, rescue nuns, zombie exterminators, and those are just the ones that wev'e taken a brief look at here.

And then there's Vern, the Dragon Private investigator.

Welcome to Los Lagos, Colorado, home of the Gap; in this case, the Gap is an inter-dimensional hole in time and space, and we can be grateful that this one isn't set in Cardiff. The Gap has made Los Lagos home of plenty of interesting species from the Faerie dimension, a realm that is quite Catholic, and the original home to Vern, who was a dragon of some repute even before he had an encounter with a knight named George.

Now, banished to our world by the Duke of Pebbles-on-Tweed, Vern has made his living as a PI, along with his sidekick, the Vatican Mage Sister Grace.

Like every good PI story from Dashel Hammet to Jim Butcher, the story starts small, and spirals out of control quickly. What starts as the search for a missing ring after an assault, quickly turns into a murder mystery, with a kidnapping for a side dish, and it turns into race to stop the end of the world, dun dun dunnnnnnnn.....

But how do you stop a killer that leaves no trace? Not even a scent a dragon can follow?

Overall, the story is fun. There are some nice shots at Hollywood along the way (let's start with the chapter titles "Murky but Present Dangers," or "Gapraker"). And it includes the best take on Disney animatronics that I've seen since Peter David's Psi-Man series. The chapter titles were something else ("Seven Habits of Highly Defective Henchmen.") In fact, the humor that works best is when Vern narrates events in term of cliche. The satirical elements are possibly the funniest parts of the novel. I'm not sure if one of the villains was supposed to resemble Dilbert's Pointy-Haired-Boss, but it works.

Also along for the ride is the Bureau of Interdimensional Law Enforcement. ("BILE?" Vern thinks. "There's a name that must have been made in committee.") With some entertaining parodies of James Bond thrown in, as well as one character who should be played by Marvel's Agent Coulson.

And, seriously, who can argue with a book where Shiva is a war correspondent? Or where the Vatican has its own SpecOps team, giving a whole new meaning to the term "church militant"? It's right up there with John Ringo's Princess of Wands novel, that was based in the real world, with a little more strangeness attached.

There is also a wonderful sequence of negotiating with the kidnappers. It's only two pages long, but it's truly entertaining.

Live and Let Fly has some good solid action sequences. Like the attack of the killer animatronics, or a scene with an airship that was a cross between Final Fantasy VI and a John Nance novel.

And then, there's the line "I wanted the Holy Hand Grenades on standby in case all Hell did break loose."

Yeah, this was fun.



I'm in Love...With a Dragon!
LIVE AND LET FLY!
Author Karina Fabian
Swimming Kangaroo Press, http://www.swimmingkangaroo.com/
Paperback 978-1-934041-78-9


Hold the press! I’m in love….

With a dragon!

Fantasy fans will be blown away by the fast-paced action and unforgettable characters in Karina Fabian’s Live and Let Fly. In Mrs. Fabian’s world, a wormhole ripped open a gateway between “our” universe, known as the Mundane, and the Faerie world. Mixing faerie folk of all persuasions, including pixies, brownies (not the kind you find in a lunch box!), a guardian angel, and a cranky dragon with the humans in our dimension never ceases to be fraught with both hilarity and menace.

Vern captured my heart with his brusque, dry wit and keen intelligence. St. George zapped him with a geas centuries ago, thus removing some of his size and many of his powers. Now the Faerie Catholic Church employs Vern to handle any private investigations that involve the collision of the two worlds. In exchange for his services, Vern regains his magical abilities little by little. Infractions, however, remove those abilities just as quickly. He also is allowed to hunt on Duke Galen’s grounds occasionally for something other than fast food hamburgers. After all, a dragon’s gotta’ eat some time…

Teamed with Vern is a nun from the Faerie World, Sister Grace, High Mage of Our Lady of the Miracles, whose job is to aid Vern in his investigations and to try to keep his feet… er, claws … on the straight and narrow. The results are delightful mixtures of daring dilemmas, uproarious hilarity, and sometimes even misty-eyed poignancy.

In this particular case, a young starlet from the Mundane world known as Rhoda Dakota falls in love with Charlie Wilmot, Herald of the Duke of Peebles-on-Tweed in the Faerie World. That mixture alone raises eyebrows and ruffles up a few scandals. But when Rhoda is kidnapped and Charlie found mugged, the case heats up. Grace and Vern must find Rhoda and rescue her, but they must also discover what lies at the heart of this scheme. What they uncover is… well, what else? A plot to take over the world!

Live and Let Fly is a roller coaster ride from beginning to end. Mrs. Fabian also weaves in a lot of Greek mythology and legendary figures, which makes her plots all the more intriguing. But more than being a fun read with a lot of action, it is also a subtle nudge about issues like forgiveness, repentance, humility, acceptance, and love. Mrs. Fabian manages to teach Christian principles in a down-to-earth fashion that shows how Christ moves in our lives when we let Him a subtle nudge about issues like forgiveness, repentance, humility, acceptance, and love Hang onto your hats! Vern is in town.

Review by Deborah Cullins Smith
Contributing author, Light at the Edge of Darkness