Rating: 
Summary: Urban Fantasy/Mythic Fiction, Just read it
Review: This is the book which began it all for me. I loved this book, and though I am now addicted to authors like Charles de Lint and Terry Windling (check out her web page for some amazing explorations and essays about mythic fiction), no other book has quite touched Emma Bull's in my opinion, extremely biased as it is on this score. I'm completely in love with Eddie and her puck (nothing like Eddie and the Cruisers, trust me). This is one of the few books I can remember reading where the female character stays strong and certain of herself throughout the entire work (check out Robin McKinley's The Hero and the Crown for another one, and another of my all-time favorites). Yet, the book never for a second gets mired down in self-pity or movie-of-the-week woman-as-doormat melodrama. Okay, I'm going to put down the keyboard and walk away now, 'cause I could list more reasons why I love this book and risk boring you into not reading it for yourself. Did I mention the main character plays lead guitar in her own band? How cool is that!!
Rating: 
Summary: Fey, death, and Rock 'n' roll . . .
Review: I read this book about three years ago, back when it was still out of print, and I was very excited when I heard it was being reprinted. I can't exactly decide whether I like the cover, but it's certainly better than the old one.Eddi McCandry is the guitar player for a lousy band. They're not really going anywhere, and neither, particularly, is her life. One night, everything changes: the band splits up, she breaks up with the lead singer, and she gets chosen to be the mortal talisman for a war between the Seelie and Unseelie fey. This is all okay, though, because she gets to put another band together, and they're good. Really good. Especially the other guitarist . . . and let's not forget her bodyguard, the phouka . . . Oh, yeah, she needs a bodyguard because the Unseelie fey are trying to kill her, in between band rehearsals and battles . . . One thing that really made me laugh about this book was the setting. It's the eighties. Eddi's clothing, which is REALLY COOL by the standards of the book, sounds like something off of Saved by the Bell. This is definitely a book for fantasy-punk geeks: the music mentioned includes bands such as Boiled in Lead (Celtic Rock) and David Bowie (self-explanatory); the fashions, albeit eighties, are the same; and the general demeanor of the book is rather Borderlands-y. (Which makes sense, considering Emma Bull was one of the co-creators of the original Borderlands series.) However, even if you aren't a fantasy-punk geek, you can still read it. It's engaging and has very likable characters; the plot takes a couple of not-precisely-as-expected turns; the description of the fey is interesting and fits fairly well with the expected fantasy fey-canon (she didn't try to rewrite the Sidhe as bloodsucking ugly vampires, for example). So, to end, elements of fantasy, realism, eighties-punk, romance, and humanity make it accessible and readable by anyone. Even those who don't remember the eighties.
Rating:
Summary: Rockin' in the Sidhe World *grin*
Review: Anyone who likes urban fantasy should go "back to basics" and pick up this defining classic of the subgenre. I've read several books that borrow zillions of plot elements from _War for the Oaks_, but never reach the same sort of exhilarating heights. Yeah, yeah, we all know the story: young woman wanders the city at night and meets a mysterious stranger, so on, so forth. Now sit back and see it done right! Eddi McCandry has just quit her boyfriend's abysmal band, and now plans to break up with the boyfriend as well. But before she gets the chance to talk to him, she gets recruited into a war between the Seelie and Unseelie Courts, for the heart and soul and magic of Minneapolis. You see, the Fair Folk can't wound each other in battle unless there is a human there to lend mortality. The Seelie Court needs Eddi in order to make their sparring a war rather than a mere sport. What follows is a romp of an adventure, as Eddi juggles her new band, Seelie matters, and two very different Faerie men. One will dazzle her with beauty and charm; the other will surprise her with courage and devotion. I disagree with the reviewers who griped about the love story. First of all, the romance is sweet and intense, and *feels real*, which means something in a world where main characters seem to fall in love solely because one of them is the male lead and the other is the female lead. The relationship unfolds naturally, and I had goosebumps on my arms and a tear in my eye when I read the stormy-night love scene. Second, the romantic subplots do a great job of showing the differences between the human mind and the Faerie psyche. Ever notice how, in some urban fantasy novels, the faeries are just like normal people, except that they have prettier hair and don't know how to use household appliances? This is not one of those novels. One of Emma Bull's achievements with this novel is that she sheds some light on the way faeries think. What do faeries think of love? Why don't they like being thanked? Using scraps of lore, Bull creates a vivid view of Faerie culture. And along the way, she also takes us on a wild ride through the land of rock music, showing us the way a band forms, and eventually, ideally, becomes like family. She captures the exhilaration of performing music, and the magic the music evokes. And as an added bonus, Bull is pretty darn good at writing rock lyrics. I wonder if those are actual songs I could find recordings of, if I knew the name of her band.
Rating:
Summary: A classic.
Review: One of the first and perhaps the best contemporary "faerie" story. I bought it when it originally came out many years ago and have re-read it often since then; each time I am as enchanted and engrossed by it as I was the first time. Read it -- you'll love it.
Rating: 
Summary: Didn't work for me
Review: This urban fantasy really didn't work for me. For virtually the first half of the book it was all "urban" and almost no "fantasy". That would be tolerable if it was interesting and/or well paced. Instead it was plodding and pedestrian. What we get is a not especially engaging look at what goes into the making of a rock-n-roll band; the band members, the equipment, the practices, the "gigs", etc. Were I a musician I may have found it more palatable, but I'm not. I cringed every time the author referred to a guitar as an "axe". In fact the author did play in a rock band, and this was her vehicle to blend her fantasy writing with her rock band experience. That leads us to the fantasy. What saved this book from being a total loss was the Phouka, a witty, charming, and flamboyant character. Most of the rest of the fantasy characters (not to mention the mortal characters), and their troubles, failed to connect with me in any way. The plot revolves around a war in Faerie land, with good guys and bad guys that were fairly indistinguishable. I couldn't have cared less about the outcome, although it was never in doubt. The resolution of the conflict also irritated me. (Wow... I liked this book even less than I realized). So I give one star for the effort, and one for the Phouka.
Rating: 
Summary: slow and pondering
Review: The premise of this book is great but the writer doesn't get to it until past the middle of the book. Many pages are spent describing the mundane daily life of the main character. Most of the book is spent arguing with the main character's fairy bodyguard and the band members. The bad guys are contatnly talked about but you never get any sense that they are any kind of a threat until too late in the book. You would think that the action could have been brought in sooner or 1/3 of the book could have been cut out. To me, and of course im just one reader, the book is only a set up to get the two main chartaterd to be invloved with each other. This could also have been done sooner and it would have complicated the plot and made it more intersting.
Rating:
Summary: Read it!
Review: War of the Oaks is another great spin on the world of the Fey. The story, character development was right on. My only criticism was that she is obviously a musician and went on a bit too much into the musical descriptions and analogies. Otherwise, I would highly recommend this great book.
Rating:
Summary: I'm thrilled to see this book back in print!
Review: Oh my God, I just about had a heart attack when I found out that War for the Oaks is back in print! You see, I had read it years ago and have never been able to get a hold of it since then! So, I am definitely ordering this book and I suggest you do the same as well because it is something you won't want to miss!
Rating:
Summary: Where the Magic's Real...
Review: "War for the Oaks" is the story of Eddi McCandry, who starts the story out playing guitar in Minneapolis bars. Coming home from the breakup of her last band she finds herself drafted into the oldest of wars. The conflict waged by the Fay of the Seelie court, the house of light, against the creatures of darkness and the queen of night herself. Her part is to be that mortal who enables the elves to kill each other, so that the battle will have a final conclusion. Emma Bull's elves are not the sweet folk that inhabit child's fairy tales. Instead they are the harsh, often cruel yet beautiful folk that frightened our ancestors years ago. Their manners have no human equivalent and they are cold, passionate, harsh, tender, noble and terrible almost at random. Into this world Eddi finds her way, guided by the whimsical Phouka who can be dog or man at will, and who dresses himself from an invisible closet of finery. In between the battles and conflicts Eddi assembles a new band composed of her close friend Carla on drums, Dan Rochelle on keyboards, mumbling Hedge on bass and Willy Silver on lead guitar. Together they become part of the magic and form the base for Eddi's own powers, which she has acquired from her new place in Faerie. But it will take all the band's power, all that the Seelie court has to offer, and a bit of pure luck besides to win the battle for Minneapolis. Especially when nothing is quite what it seems. For if the Fay never lie, they still can twist the truth to the quick. "War for the Oaks" is considerably more than a fantasy tale. It is also a fine romance. The elves understand the form of love, but they have little grasp of the content. Human feelings are a world apart from them. Eddi McCandry must confront them over this weakness and teach several of them the significance and power of human feelings. This is romance without ever being exaggerated or cloying, and is what makes the novel so compelling. Emma Bull is not a prolific author. She has, I believe, four novels to her credit and a fair number of short stories. Perhaps, because of her pacing, her work is carefully polished. Settings and characters breathe with remarkable life, and her narrative has tremendous flow. She draws equally well from legend and her own creativity. Her only flaw in "War for the Oaks" is that she is not quite sure of herself in her climactic scenes, which causes some slight confusion. For a novelist in her early phases this is a mere quibble. "War for the Oaks" is one of the best fantasy stories of its time, and has already become a classic of the genre.
Rating:
Summary: A Riff for Faerie
Review: There are no dragons here, but you won't miss them. Instead you'll find a superb tale of faerie, music, and romance. Emma Bull and Steven Brust (also a well known fantasy author) were at one point two components of the band Cats Laughing, and Bull uses her musical knowledge and experience to great advantage here. Her descriptions of practice sessions and performances will resonate with any music fan, and she skillfully weaves this into a major component of her tale of Eddi, selected by the Seelie to invoke the boon of mortality on the battles of the faerie world. To protect Eddi until the time of the battle, a phouka is assigned to guard her, at times a formidable dog, at other times a whimsical human trickster. Though quite predictable, there is a slowly building romance between the two, and this defines both characters to a depth that is rare in fantasy, as each impacts on and reacts to the other, and wind their way into the reader's heart. The world of faerie is seen at a distance (even though the major characters are directly involved in some of the faerie battles), never fully explained or examined in detail, and this very indistinctness adds flavor, a bit of mystery, and charm to what is really a story of and about some of our deepest emotions. The final battle between Eddi and the Queen of Air and Darkness is extraordinarily different, drawing on the 'magical' emotional state that sometimes occurs between the makers and hearers of music, rather than swords, spells, talismans, or some hidden bit of arcane knowledge so common to the climax of most fantasy. Different, powerful, skillfully told, this book is a charmer.
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