It's not Occam's Razor

Started: February 22
Finished: March 4
Title: Lucy's Blade
Author: John Lambshead
ISBN: 9781416555773
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

Yet another bad cover! The woman depicted is supposed to be a sixteen year old girl in Elizabethan England. Granted, she's sharing her body with a being of pure energy from the far future (or perhaps a parallel dimension), but that still doesn't explain the ridiculous rack. Must be an example of "most common superpower". It's become egregious enough with most books published by Baen that I've begun thinking of the publishers name as being an acronym for Boobs Adorn Each Novel.

This book mostly takes place in the Elizabethan era, but also features both a few modern-day or near future scenes and one bit set in the unimaginably far future. In the more or less now, a woman working (or compelled to work for) a shadowy organization steals a chest from an archeological dig and then, against orders, opens the chest and is hypnotized by the enormous diamond inside. We'll call this the wrapper story, as the book is written somewhat as though the tale is being told to her.

In the short bit set in the distant future, an intelligence is created for the sole purpose of being flung into the past (or across the dimensions) to search for the genesis of her people. It appears that there's a religious schism in the works between those that believe the energy beings descended from or were created by organic life and those that believe they arose naturally or in some way unrelated to the organics. The young intelligence successfully lands in the more or less modern day, colonizes the internet, and sucks up all the information she can lay her mind on. Just as she's getting ready to jump back home (likely causing every computer on the planet to crash in the process), she's grabbed by an unknown force and dragged further into the past, where she is caught first by one demon summoner and then by another. The latter summoner is working for Queen Elizabeth's head spy, Sir Francis Walsingham. Unfortunately, Walsingham's niece breaks the summoning circle and the energy being enters her. This has the beneficial effect of basically turning Lucy into something very like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but means that Lilith (a name the energy being picked up from the first summoner) can't leave without killing her.

Of course, it turns out that the first summoner is working with people trying to assassinate the queen. Lucy, with her new powers and the help of Lilith's vast intellect, jumps into the fray to help foil the plot. A series of adventures occur. At the end of the book, the current-day lady awakes from her diamond-bedazzled daze in possession of immensely important knowledge and also in great danger. A sequel appears assured, probably focused on sleepy-gal.

This appears to be a first novel (the only other things I can find under the author's name are a few Warhammer game supplements), but it reads well. My only real quibble is that the book sometimes feels like a collection of short stories stitched together with bridging text. I'm not going to force this one on all my friends and family, but I do plan on reading any other books Lambshead comes out with (as long as they aren't more sourcebooks for a game I don't play).