Book Review: The Pariah, by Andrew Ryan
In the little ‘dedication’ bit at the beginning of The Pariah, Anthony Ryan gives a shout out to George MacDonald Fraser for showing him how fun it is to have a cad as your protagonist. To be honest, I forget who recommended The Pariah to me, but that dedication right there was enough to hook my interest. Though honestly, that dedication is a little misleading, as The Pariah isn’t quite Fantasy-Flashman, for better or worse.
Instead, The Pariah draws from a number of other works for inspiration. The book is narrated by, and centers on a young orphan named Alwyn, forced to live by his wits and his knife as part of a roving outlaw band. It’s vaguely Robin Hood-esque, except for all the abuse and murder. But when Alwyn’s gang is betrayed, and he’s the only survivor, he sets out to get his reveeeenge, only to be conscripted to fight in the kingdom’s civil war, under the banner of a charismatic woman who sees visions from heaven. So, y’know, it’s a little The Count of Monte Cristo, a little Joan of Arc, all peppered with the kind of gore, politics, and swearing typical of “f-bomb fantasy” a-la-Game of Thrones. And again, while Ryan draws from many different sources of inspiration in The Pariah, he puts enough of his own original spin on the plotting of the novel so it doesn’t come off as obnoxiously derivative.
The Pariah is fairly grim and gritty, especially in the first part of the book. Which honestly can get a little repetitive? Like, nearly every character in the book is either a bloodthirsty, abusive bully and/or just some rube to be conned and/or mugged in an alley. Also sometimes there are sexy ladies for Alwyn to get horny about. Which, well, he is a teenager at the start of the book, I guess? The cast of characters gets a little more diverse as the book goes on, but The Pariah remains a cynical tale as related by a cynic.
Alwyn’s narration isn’t nearly as entertainingly self aware as Harry Flashman’s, but on the flipside it’s not as frustratingly self-aggrandizing as Kvothe’s in The Name of the Wind. There’s a minor framing device between segments of the book where Alwyn is recording the testament of some of those fancy important nobles who are behind the whole civil war thing, but Ryan never really commits to the “false document” gimmick. This isn’t a bad thing per se, it’s just that it would have added a lot more flavor if he did. But that’s just my personal taste.
This said, the book picks up after the first third or so, as Alwyn is finally thrust out into the wider world as part of a “volunteer” regiment fighting in the kingdom’s civil war. The pace picks up into more of a rollicking adventure, as Alwyn winds up doing things instead of just running away from the increasingly long list of people who want to murder him. Once the book gets going, I kept on finding time to go back to read another chapter, just to see what happened next. With that kind of page-turnability, Ryan is certainly doing something right.
This said, The Pariah is a violent book (I mean, the first chapter opens with Alwyn stabbing a dude in the neck so he can steal his horse), but it’s got some … mixed messages on it. Namely, Ryan tries to lay out a “war is hell” sort of theme, which, y’know, fine. But on the flipside the narration has a sort of slasher-movie gleefullness in how the blood and gore is described. It’s not stomach-churning splatterpunk, but it lands on “dude, that guy’s head got chopped off! Awesome!” more often than not.
The Pariah is the first book in a series (the sequel, Martyr, just came out last year), and it ends on enough of a cliffhanger to make me curious to read the sequel, so I guess it did its job there. All and all, while The Pariah is certainly better than a lot of the imitation-Martin books on the shelves today, it’s not a great book. So if you’re in the mood for something bloody and grimdark-esque, give it a read. But if the mere mention of Game of Thrones makes you roll your eyes, I wouldn’t blame you for giving it a pass.
Book Review: The Nineties, by Chuck Klosterman
Hey, remember the 90’s?
If you’re reading this blog, with its occasional digressions into old cartoons and other pop culture nonsense, I’m going to guess the answer is “yes.” Which in turn means you’ll probably have a lot of your own memories of stuff Chuck Klosterman talks about in The Nineties.
Klosterman is an author I’ve enjoyed in the past, but I haven’t read in a long while. So when I saw The 90’s on my library app, I thought I’d give it a go. Structurally, The Nineties is exactly what one can expect from Klosterman’s non-fiction: a bunch of loosely connected essays kicking around ideas about various aspects of pop culture. And since The Nineties is about the titular decade, Klosterman touches on all the big stuff: Kurt Kobain, Grunge, The (first) Gulf War, Bill Clinton, Tupac Shakur, Michael Jordan, The Internet, Generation X, O.J. Simpson, Jerry Seinfeld, Oprah Winfrey and a bunch of other famous people and events that we all talked about in the time between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the fall of the Twin Towers.
Klosterman casts a wide-but-shallow net in The Nineties, as any singular chapter could make for the subject of its own book. This said, the essays in the book feel a little uneven? As some of them more or less say ‘this thing happened’ without delving too much into why. Alternately, I could just be a little biased, as I too remember the 90’s, so my own recollections are coloring my opinion on Klosterman’s takes. (Or maybe I’m just disappointed he didn’t write anything about the Console Wars or Third-Wave ska).
On the other hand, I found the most interesting parts of The Nineties to cover stuff I knew very little about. For instance, Klosterman posits that the twin blows of the 1994 MLB strike and the later steroid scandal were what cemented the NFL as the most popular sports league in the U.S. Likewise, Klosterman also features a chapter about Garth Brooks, and how he paved the way for mainstream country music to fit into the niche of over-the-top arena-rock spectacle that was abandoned by the Grunge and Alternative movements.
All and all, The Nineties is … fine? It’s an interesting enough read, and Klosterman brings up some interesting points throughout the text, but it’s certainly not a book that’s going to change one’s outlook on life, or history, or anything like that. It’s deeper than sheer clickbait (can a book be clickbait?) that shallowly goes into “hey, remember this?” nostalgia– but not by that much.
Now that I think of it, I’d love to see what a younger reader who didn’t remember the 90’s would think of this book. But that’s just from my own curiosity, really. The Nineties is just past the more positive side of “okay.” Not challenging or enlightening, but it’s more than silly entertainment either. Still, I can’t help but feel there were a few points where Klosterman was … phoning it in.
(I probably would’ve said that even if the book had a different cover, but I will never pass up a shameless gag).
Book Review: The Lost Metal, by Brandon Sanderson
Oh hey, a new Brandon Sanderson book just dropped!
And, uh, I’m not gonna talk about that one.
Brandon Sanderson is such a prolific (and popular!) author that, by the time I got a copy of The Lost Metal from the library and read it, dude had another book out. Pretty impressive, no? What’s more impressive is that, while I tend to go into a Sanderson novel with a bit of stubborn skepticism (mostly because I haven’t gotten over how bad Steelheart was), I enjoyed The Lost Metal far more than I thought I would.
The irony of The Lost Metal is that it’s one of Sanderson’s better books, and absolutely one of the worst to start with. Y’see, The Lost Metal is the seventh of Sanderson’s Mistborn novels, and the capstone to the “Era 2” of that particular series. Not only does this mean there are six whole novels worth of backstory to keep track of, but Sanderson also uses The Lost Metal as a chance to tie the Mistborn books into some of his other novels, so reading this book is basically like watching the latest Avengers movie in the amount of homework one has to do so you don’t keep asking questions about why the raccoon has a laser gun or why everyone’s so worked up about a glove with some shiny rocks on it. As for me, I’ve read enough Sanderson to know … basically what he’s talking about, but I’m sure there were dozens of references and the like that went way over my head.
I suppose the second irony in The Lost Metal is that, once one gets past some exposition about magic and evil cults and escalating new threats, the plot is … fairly straightforward? As at its heart, what it comes down to is “the villains have figured out how to make what are basically magic atom bombs, and our heroes with cool powers have to stop them.” Which is, of course, ridiculously oversimplifying things, but at heart The Lost Metal is a big shooty action movie of a novel, particularly in the third act. Like, if Skyward is what happens when Sanderson plays Star Fox, and The Way of Kings is the result of a Dynasty Warriors binge, I can only presume that Sanderson played some 3rd person shooter like Gungrave, or maybe Devil May Cry, to draw inspiration for some of The Lost Metal’s fight scenes. Which isn’t a bad thing, it’s just not exactly “change the world” kind of sci-fi.
But even for all the magic-jumping gunfights and occasional explanations of how various magic powers work, The Lost Metal still has enough depth to it to distinguish it from a lot of the other books in the series. Part of this comes from having six books worth of backstory to pull callbacks from– even the goofy broadsheets interspersed through the books become something of a minor plot point. Another part comes from the fact the Mistborn novels have a set sense of progression to them; both in the characters maturing, and in the setting itself. Even in the “Era 2” novels, the world of Scadrial has gone from a vaguely Steampunky/Western vibe to outright dieselpunk, with cars, electricity, radio and even mass spectrometers. But, of course, the real interesting part is seeing how the people in that setting are changing. Wax, the book’s central super-jumping magic gunslinger, has matured into a politician and family man, pulled into One Last Adventure™ to save the world, while his “whacky sidekick” Wayne is … not nearly as obnoxious as he was in the previous books. Heck, I even laughed at some of Wayne’s jokes, which may be a first? Then again it likely helps that I read The Lost Metal instead of listening to the audiobook, which meant I was spared the “ELLO GUVNAH” pseudo-cockney accent the narrator used for Wayne’s dialogue. Oof.
So yeah. While The Lost Metal is one of those books you’ve got to do your homework on, it sticks the landing well enough to make all that reading worth it. Furthermore, while The Lost Metal caps off Wax & Wayne’s story, it also opens up enough doors and asks enough questions to make one wonder how the “Era 3” is gonna turn out. Of course, the real test is going to be if Sanderson can tie the Mistborn novels into the wider Cosmere without getting too convoluted and complicated, as I could easily see later books getting too intricate and referential to support their own narrative weight. Either way, should be interesting to read!
Book Review: Discount Armageddon, by Seanan McGuire
Oh hey, happy New Year, everybody!
Depending on how ambitious I get, I may put together a Reading-Resolutions post, or maybe even a 2022 recap– though a recap wouldn’t be entirely accurate as there were a couple of books I read but didn’t get around to reviewing, and …yeah.
But hey, maybe in 2023 I’ll keep better track of what I read? Starting with … something I technically finished reading in 2022, but hey. Let’s get back on track.
In any case, Seanan McGuire isone of those authors that my friends really enjoy, and often recommend to me. The problem is, I was first introduced to McGuire’s work through her zombie novel Feed, under her Mira Grant nom-de-plume. And, well, Feed’s themes of “don’t trust the CDC!” and “YouTubers are the only reliable source of information” was a bad look back when I read it, and really doesn’t look good in a post-2020 world. But hey, Feed came out back in 2010, so it’s not like McGuire knew how bad things would be a decade later.
Still, McGuire is an author my friends keep recommending, and she keeps winning Hugo awards, so I guess she’s doing something right? And so, I decided to give her a second chance. Which brings us to the first of McGuire’s InCryptid series, Discount Armageddon.
Depending on which marketing exec you ask, Discount Armageddon is either an Urban Fantasy novel or a Paranormal Romance novel. Though without a dude in a trenchcoat or a woman in leather pants on the cover, my usual classification metrics are useless. Also there’s a legit plot reason for the sexy schoolgirl outfit, but I digress.
Still, that woman on the cover there is Verity Price, scion of a long line of cryptozoologists. The central conceit of the InCryptid novels is that the main characters aren’t your standard Urban Fantasy magic-cops or occult-detectives out hunting monsters, but rather they take more of a “Park Ranger” kind of role, trying to protect cryptids from humanity, and vice versa. Which, admittedly, can involve putting down something that’s out there eating people, but Verity makes it a point to only use that as a last resort. Of course, cryptid preservation doesn’t take up all of Verity’s time, as she’s moved to New York City in an effort to become a professional ballroom dancer. It’s a fun little character trait that McGuire puts to good use, often drawing parallels between dancing and combat (it’s all in the footwork, you know).
But! It’s not all waltzes and wendigos for Verity, when Dominic de La Luca, an aggravating (and notably sexy) agent of the Covenant shows up. The Covenant is the “kill ‘em all” monster-hunting organization that Verity’s family fled from years ago, so, y’know. Bad blood there. Things get worse when many of New York’s cryptids start mysteriously disappearing, and some sort of lizard-man snake cult starts causing trouble, forcing Dominic and Verity to team up. Action scenes and sexual tension ensue.
Plot wise, Discount Armageddon hits all the basic beats of an Urban Fantasy novel. A snarky protagonist narrating in first person, various strange and occasionally whacky monsters, a big threat looming over the city, all peppered with just enough local detail to paint a mostly realistic portrait of NYC. There’s a lot of Buffy in Verity, what with the whole “badass blonde girl who terrifies monsters and also has a sexy dark-haired love interest in a trenchcoat,” but McGuire manages to put enough of a unique spin on the tropes that it doesn’t come off as obnoxious fanfic. The action is solid, and the romance is steamy (if not explicit), so Discount Armageddon does exactly what it sets out to do.
And while Discount Armageddon has a fun setting filled with interesting characters, it’s not without its flaws. For one, (and this is a minor quibble on my part), while the book is centered around managing/hunting monsters, Verity doesn’t really have much in the way of cool gadgets to use. She’s just got, like, a couple pistols and some throwing knives and some other stuff. This is just a personal thing of mine, but one of my favorite bits in Urban Fantasy-ish stories is seeing the various widgets the protagonist uses to give them an edge over the monsters. Silver bullets, holy water super soakers, creative applications of rock salt, whatever. I mean, I don’t need an exhaustive, nigh-pornagraphic review of Verity’s arsenal, but it’d be cool if she had some kind of utility belt or something.
Discount Armageddon’s more notable flaw is that the plot runs out of steam in the third act. There’s the big obligatory fight against the villains, of course– except McGuire introduces a bunch of new characters at more or less the last minute. Considering some of these late-intro’d characters are the antagonists who’re responsible for the evil plot, it just feels like a slapdash ending to what should otherwise be a solid adventure/romance story. Like, I can’t even recall if some of the bad guys even had names, which … well on the one hand they’re meant to be generic evil cultists, but it still comes off as a little lazy.
Still, as far as Urban Fantasy/Paranormal Romance books go, I’ve certainly read worse. If nothing else, Discount Armageddon was entertaining enough to get McGuire off of my “do not read” list, so that’s something. I’ll probably come back to the InCryptid series next time I’m in the mood for something light and fluffy, or I might even branch out into some of her other novels.
Don’t suppose any of you have any recommendations?
Book Review: Bluebird, by Ciel Pierlot
Covers lie.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll no doubt say it again. I suppose there’s something to be said for being pleasantly surprised by a book that has an appropriately mysterious cover … but on the flipside, I can’t help but miss the days of genre paperbacks featuring lavish paintings of somebody with a raygun and/or a sword.
And sure, I get the concept of minimalism, but I can’t help but feel whoever designed Bluebird’s cover kinda phoned it in? It’s like “hey, the book’s called Bluebird, so I’ll draw some … blue feathers. With some weird lighting. And that’s it. Symbolism!”
In a more honest world, Bluebird’s cover would feature its protagonists looking badass while something exploded behind them in the background. Or at least it’d do more to convey its elevator pitch of “lesbian gunslinger fights spies in space!” It’s a good thing I bothered to read the blurb in my library app, as otherwise it would’ve been easy for me to skip over Bluebird entirely.
So yeah. Bluebird centers on Rig, the aforementioned lesbian gunslinger (in space!). Rig’s carved out a halfway decent life for herself with a ship of her own, a hot librarian girlfriend, and most importantly freedom from the three factions (more on them, later) that rule the galaxy. But when Rig’s twin sister is kidnapped by Rig’s former employers, Rig is forced to team up with a mysterious assassin in order to rescue her.
It’s all standard post Star Wars/Firefly/Mass Effect style space opera. Snarky protagonists, rollicking action, and so forth. Thankfully, I rather enjoy a good blasty space opera, and while Pierlot certainly draws inspiration from other sci-fi stories, she doesn’t slavishly imitate them or shoehorn in clumsy references to prove her geek-cred, either. Though one odd thing I did notice was that Rig is a bald, blue-skinned alien woman, which is a … surprisingly common trope, now that I think about it?
Rig’s certainly a fun character, I wasn’t quite sold on her character arc. Mostly because her deal is that she used to design weapons of mass destruction for the Pyrite faction until she ran away and became a space-scoundrel. So, like … if Oppenheimer ran away and became Han Solo? It’s a weird direction, is what I’m saying. Which honestly a running theme with this book.
At least Rig is a fun to follow, as is Ginka, the mysterious assassin she teams up with. It’s a lot of fun to watch Rig and Ginka banter and/or blast their way through a batch of faction goons. However, where the character interplay and the action scenes are really solid, the setting … isn’t. It doesn’t feel generic so much as … underbaked? For example, in Bluebird, the galaxy has been ruled for thousands of years by three … factions. Not empires, not federations, not dominions (okay yes I’ve been watching DS9 again), but factions. It just strikes me as a painfully generic term, especially when the three factions (Pyrite, Ascetic, and Ossuary, for the record) are basically three different flavors of totalitarian theocracy, just with different logos? It doesn’t help that Rig’s adventures take her to places literally called “the Ossuary homeworld.” or wherever. It just feels like wasted potential, as an easy way to add flavor to any genre book is to pepper in exotic locale names. I mean, how cool would it be if the characters had to go someplace with an evocative, pulpy name like PLANET CATACOMB or something? It feels like Pierlot used ‘faction’ as a placeholder and never had the chance to think of something better to call the space-nations. There’s also some business with libraries and librarians being a Big Deal, but it’s never really explained why? Apart from Pierlot thinking libraries are rad, I guess, so I can at least agree with her there.
Like the setting, Bluebird is also a little thematically underbaked. Pierlot occasionally touches on heavier themes of genocide and colonialism and such, but only briefly. And even then, it feels kind of odd to feature that kind of stuff in a book where the protagonist names her pistols Panache and Pizzazz. It’s just an odd juxtaposition, especially since Bluebird falls firmly on the side of “pulpy adventure” and not “thought-proviking critique of modern society” kind of sci-fi. Which is fine, for the record.
Bluebird also has something of a problem in scale in its conflict, especially in the third act. As again, the factions are supposed to be these giant star-spanning empires that have been around for millennia, but at the same time Rig is able to assault the headquarters of what’s basically the Space-KGB with, like, a couple dozen friends? It doesn’t help that the Space-KGB get talked up as a bunch of terrifying superspies, only to do dumb stuff like not searching prisoners for weapons before taking them to meet their leader. When Cobra Commander starts looking like a more competent leader than you, you’ve got problems. It all just feels very small, for what should be a grand and terrible organization like something out of Dune. Honestly if Rig just went up against, say, just one planet’s space-mafia, or even a single corrupt space-corporation, the story would click together a lot more easily.
Still, complain as I may, Bluebird still manages to coast by on quirky charisma– much like Rig herself does. It’s a fun enough adventure that made me smile, it’s just that it’s a little frustrating, as with some revision, Bluebird could have been so much better. Still, at least it’s a debut novel, and one with a solid enough foundation to it that I’ll look forward to reading whatever Pierlot comes up with next.
Hopefully that book will have some spaceships and lasers on the cover.
Book Review: Dead Man’s Hand, by James J. Butcher
Not Jim Butcher, but James J. Butcher. I had to do a bit of a double-take too.
See, James Butcher is the son of Jim Butcher, famed writer behind the Dresden Files and such. So, y’know, I’ve gotten to the point where authors I’ve followed since I was a dumb teenager now have children old enough to get published. Which means I’m old. So that’s fun.
Still, I was curious enough to pick up Dead Man’s Hand from the library, to see how it compares to his father’s work. Which may be a little unfair– I don’t apply this level of scrutiny comparing, say Joe Hill to his dad Stephen King, but at the same time Hill made it a point to publish under a different name than his dad, just so he wouldn’t be seen as riding on his coattails.
It doesn’t help that Dead Man’s Hand is, like the Dresden Files, an Urban Fantasy book. And heck, you could probably swap out the title (and maybe slap a trenchcoat and a hat on the protagonist) and you’ve got a Dresden Files cover. Though honestly that’s more a quirk of how formulaic Urban Fantasy covers can be (bluish background, protagonist with a glowy magic hand, maybe a lady in leather pants if it’s one of those horny Paranormal Romance books).
And, to his credit, James Butcher makes some structural choices early on to distinguish Dead Man’s Hand from the Dresden Files. It’s written as a third person narrative, rather than Harry Dresden’s first-person snarkiness. Furthermore, instead of the semi-hidden magic of the Dresden Files, the magic stuff in Dead Man’s Hand is out in the open, with a split between “Usuals” and the “Unorthodox.” Though Butcher doesn’t do much with this idea, apart from having a Department of Unorthodox Affairs– i.e. wizard cops. I found this kinda disappointing, as some of the best parts of the Dresden Files are the juxtapositions between the mundane and the magical. Summoning fairies with takeout pizza, putting potions in sports-drink water bottles, and so on. James Butcher doesn’t really play around with this … except for a magic-themed kids restaurant. More on that later.
Which brings us to another difference between Dead Man’s Hand and the Dresden Files; James Butcher doesn’t draw inspiration from pulp noir mysteries, and instead pulls from buddy-cop movies. And this is where Dead Man’s Hand falls short. As the appeal of a buddy cop movie rests on the entertaining interplay between the buddy cops. But in Dead Man’s Hand, both the main characters are just miserable bastards.
We’re first introduced to Mayflower, a grizzled old monster hunter with a drinking problem and a revolver full of magic bullets. When his former partner is murdered, he’s pulled out of retirement to avenge her death. So far, so good– even if the guy’s a walking cliché. The problem with Mayflower is that he’s too grizzled and bitter, and so he just comes off as an abrasive asshole for most of the book. It doesn’t help that he reads as … kinda magic-racist? In that he keeps referring to Grimbsy, the other main character, as “witch” at the end of every other sentence. On the one hand Grimbsy is a witch (if not a very good one), but Mayflower keeps on using it like a slur, which isn’t a good look for your protagonist.
But wait, the other guy in this buddy cop duo sucks even more!
Where I often described Harry Dresden as “What if Harry Potter grew up to become Sam Spade?” I guess the easiest way to describe Grimshaw Griswald Grimsby (the guy on the cover there) would be “What if Harry Potter flunked out of school and had to work at wizard Chuck-E-Cheese for minimum wage?”
I get the impression that James Butcher really, really liked the idea of a magic-themed kids restaurant. As he spends way, way too long highlighting how shitty Grimsby’s job is, how awful the customers are, and so on, and so forth. And I get the concept of starting a character at the very bottom, so they have room to grow. Like, Grimsby is introduced wearing a pink tutu as part of a “taco fairy” costume. Which … I guess is funny? At first. But Grimsby doesn’t get the chance to change clothes until like five chapters later, which makes no sense.
There are two problems here. One is the fact that Grimsby keeps going back to his shitty job, even when the magic cops are investigating him for murder, and when big gnarly monsters have already tried to kill him. It’s to the point where (mild spoiler) the book’s big action finale is … in the wizard Chuck-E-Cheese. I get that it’s supposed to be a running gag, but it just gets more grating instead of funnier each time.
The other problem is that Grimsby … doesn’t really have any character beyond “he sucks at magic” and “he has a shitty job (because he sucks at magic).” No friends, no hobbies, no hidden talents beyond the three spells he can actually manage. He’s got a weird quirk where he doesn’t use curse words, instead saying shit like “by Oz!” or “Jabbering Jaberwocky!” which … is never explained, and makes him sound like a character from a shitty 80’s cartoon.
And again, in principle, an overwhelmed underdog overcoming their own cowardice is characterization 101. It’s just that there’s little to make one actually like Grimsby. And again, for yet another unfair comparison to the Dresden Files, for all the series’ flaws, at least they’re carried along by the strong first person narration. Harry Dresden is the kind of character you could have a beer with. Grimshaw Griswald Grimsby … is not. So when Grimsby gets chased around and nearly killed and otherwise abused, I never really cared.
Oh, but there’s at least one part of Dead Man’s Hand that does match up to the Dresden Files. Which is to say, there aren’t any women characters of note! Or, well, there are, but of the three I remember, one of them is messily murdered before the book starts, one of them is a magic-cop that Grimsby went to magic school with and has a crush on, and one of them is … a succubus who runs a sex club. Because that’s just another box on the Urban Fantasy checklist, I guess. James Butcher doesn’t even try subverting the trope; she’s just a literal man-eater there to be sexy and tempting and dangerous in leather. Oh, and apparently there’s a minor plot point that she cut off an enemy’s dick and turned it into a sex toy. Which is yet another joke that falls flat, despite James Butcher no doubt thinking how funny it is.
So yeah. Dead Man’s Hand is a bad book. One that’s even more frustrating because of the blatant nepotism on display in its publishing. I guess I can’t fault James Butcher for using his family connections, but at the same time I’d probably be more forgiving if he’d dabbled in a different genre than urban fantasy, or at least came up with proper nom-de-plume. And while Storm Front, the first Dresden Files book, was pretty damn rough, Dead Man’s Hand is even rougher. So I can only wonder if James Butcher will follow in his dad’s footsteps and take a couple of novels to really find his niche. And so help me, I might even try reading a sequel to Dead Man’s Hand— but more in a “morbid curiosity” sense, rather than any real enthusiasm for the material.
Because hey, when you set the bar this low, it can only get better, right?
Book Review: All of the Marvels, by Douglas Wolk
With the growing, nigh monoplistic popularity of Disney’s Marvel movies, Douglas Wolk got a heck of an idea: he was going to read all of Marvel’s comic books. Which, y’know, is a heck of an undertaking– though I’m a little jealous that he got paid for it. And the result is All of the Marvels, his guide to the decades-old monolith that is the Marvel Comics Universe. Fun stuff!
And so, Wolk lays out his project, reading everything from 1961’s Fantastic Four #1, to Marvel Legacy #1 in 2017 (with certain exceptions, such as for comics explicitly not in the Marvel Universe, such as Conan the Barbarian or GI Joe). Though comic book nerds (read: me) may start to quibble with his choice in dates, as by starting at the beginning of the silver age, Wolk leaves out the first appearances of Golden Age heroes like Captain America or Namor. Then again, I’m sure he’s read those books anyway, he just doesn’t talk about them too much in the book.
Wolk presents All of the Marvels as a guide– but kind of a loose one. He describes his book as a guide through a forest, and encourages readers to “stray from the path,” wandering off in their own direction as they find various characters or books they enjoy. Of course, to belabor the forest path metaphor, that’d make me an already experienced adventurer with some good boots and a cool hooded cloak or something. (Dunno where I’m going with this, I just like playing Rangers in D&D). Which isn’t to claim that I know more about comics than Wolk does (I don’t!), but at the same time I know just enough to recognize some of the gaps. Because, if comic book nerds love anything, it’s getting nitpicky about certain details.
All of the Marvels is broken up by character– or teams, in the case of the X-men or Avengers. Wolk then touches on a handful of individual issues in order to highlight particular character moments, or changes in the artist/writing team, and so on. Again, it’s very general; it has to be, as entire books could (and have!) been written about Spider-Man, or the X-men, and so on. Though with a lot of the chapters, Wolk presents a recurring argument: basically, any given comic book was great under a certain writer/artist team (Lee & Kirby on Fantastic Four, Claremont and Byrne on X-Men, etc), and then was terrible and listless after those guys left, though occasionally other big names will re-invent a title and make it good again. He’s not necessarily wrong, but at the same time I think this gives short shrift to a lot of good artists and writers who might not be as iconic as the big names.
Likewise, there are certain gaps in All of the Marvels that I found puzzling. For example, characters like Daredevil, the Hulk, and even Deadpool are only mentioned in passing without getting chapters of their own, despite each of them being pretty important to Marvel Comics in their own particular way. Which, again, Wolk can only make the book so long, so I guess stuff had to be cut out. Another omission is the fact that, while Wolk peppers the book with a modest amount of nerdy snark, All of the Marvels focuses more on Marvel’s successes than its failures. As, again, part of being a comic book nerd is complaining about comics, and it feels kind of incomplete to write a whole book about marvel and not mention nadirs like Rob Liefeld’s grimaces-and-pouches art, or Greg Land’s porno-plagarism, or just … everything about Chuck Austen’s run on X-men. If nothing else, mentioning that sort of thing gives a potential Marvel reader a clue of what to avoid– or what to seek out just to read a train wreck.
Also, as a sidenote on formatting: I read All of the Marvels in ebook form, because the Libby app is great for that. Though one thing about the ebook format is that all of the footnotes are compiled at the end of the ebook file, making it a pain to switch back and forth. Between that and the occasional comic page or cover worked in as illustrations (which were comparatively tiny on my phone’s e-reader screen), this book probably would read better with the physical copy in-hand.
So yeah. For something called All of the Marvels, the book isn’t quite as comprehensive as I would have expected. I guess I was kind of hoping for something more chronological, maybe something that used the history of Marvel Comics to illustrate broader cultural trends or even just trends in comic book publishing. But on the other hand, Wolk clearly lays out what All of the Marvels is (and what it isn’t) early on, so I guess I shouldn’t complain. All and all, Wolk presents an interesting and enlightening take on the Marvel canon that highlights stuff even a jaded nerd like me hasn’t heard about before. I just kinda wish there was more of it, but honestly Wolk could’ve made the book three times as long, and I’d still find something that he missed.
But hey, that’s comic books for you.
Book Review: Rivers of London, by Ben Aaronovitch
I’ve been meaning to get into Ben Aaronovitch’s “Rivers of London” series for awhile now, based on some recommendations from some friends of mine. And so, I finally managed to get Rivers of London (also known as Midnight Riot, because the publishing industry gets weird whenever they print something on both sides of the Atlantic) from the library. And now here we are!
The series centers on narrator Peter Grant, a rookie cop in the London Metropolitan Police. After seeing a ghost while on the job, Peter is recruited into the Folly, the one-man (well, two, including Peter) department in charge of policing magic crime in London. From there, Peter becomes the first apprentice wizard in England in seventy years, at which point he meets various supernatural entities, starts learning various spells, and investigates various magical murders.
The “magic detective” trope is pretty old, and a lot of the stuff in Rivers of London hits the standard plot beats of the Urban Fantasy genre verbatim. What makes Aaronvich’s book interesting, however, is in just how it’s told. Grant is an entertaining narrator; witty to the point of snarkiness, but not in an abrasive way. The supporting cast is just as entertaining: Peter’s mentor Inspector Nightingale is properly mysterious, and his weird housekeeper Molly might be my favorite character in the book. It’s very much got the feel of something you might see on the BBC– like a low key episode of Dr. Who mixed with Hot Fuzz. Considering Aaronovitch wrote a couple of Dr. Who episodes and a couple more tie-in novels, I suppose that makes sense.
This Englishness extends to the setting: London is a huge, ancient city, and as such there’s plenty of room for weird stuff to happen. Aaronovitch lives in London himself, allowing him to pepper his book with authentic detail. Though there are times where things get too detailed, and so there are occasional punchlines like “that explains it; he’s from Wolverhampton,” (not an actual quote, but you get the idea) that go over my ugly American head. Even still, Aaronovitch paints a vibrant picture of modern London, and never forgets it’s an international city, and so he makes it a point to highlight just how diverse the city is. I.e: not all the major characters are white. In fact, some of the most powerful characters in the book are of African immigrant descent, instead of just being yet another Tilda Swinton looking fairy queen or whatever. (No hate to Tilda Swinton, though). This is something of a low bar when it comes to modern literature, but there are still a lot of authors who struggle with this. (Lookin’ at you, Jim Butcher). Peter himself is biracial, which offers him a unique perspective on modern policing.
Another thing that differentiates Rivers of London from a lot of other urban fantasy novels is the fact that Peter’s a cop. A wizard cop, sure, but he still has to do stuff like follow regulations and write reports and so on. Even when he learns how to fling around potentially deadly spells, it’s treated as if he was just issued a sidearm. It’s a far cry from a lot of the lawless magic-vigilante-superhero vibe you get from a lot of other urban fantasy novels. (Again, lookin’ at you, Jim Butcher). Though I understand later books in the series veer away from the cop angle, given the scandals that have rocked the Met in recent years.
But yeah. On paper, Rivers of London doesn’t do much new with the urban fantasy genre, but its Englishness and cop-ness serves to distinguish it from yet another “wizard in a trenchcoat” novels. Though it’s also worth noting Peter’s just as horny as the typical Urban Fantasy protagonist, sometimes to a jarring degree, but at least it’s not in the “sex is dangerous, so wizards teach abstinence-only sex-ed” end of things. (Seriously, what the hell, Jim Butcher). The witty narration and brisk pace make Rivers of London a fun read, and I’ll probably return to the series in the future– even if a lot of the plot synopses I’ve read of the latter books make them sound a little same-y. But then again, the fun’s in the details and narration, so hopefully I’ll be proven wrong.
Book Review: August Kitko and the Mechas from Space, by Alex White.
What if space opera had giant robots in it?
More accurately, what if Catherynne Valente’s Space Opera had giant robots in it? As that’s one of the thoughts I had while reading Alex White’s August Kitko and the Mechas from Space. Considering I rather like Space Opera, and I love giant robots, we’re pretty much set to go.
August Kitko and the Mechas from Space centers on the titular August Kitko (“Gus” to his friends), an extremely talented jazz pianist. After hooking up with glam-rock superstar Ardent Violet at a literal end of the world party, Gus finds himself merged with a Vanguard, one of the titular Mechas From Space– an enormous superweapon that’s decided to save humanity instead of wipe it out.
As, the alien Vanguards think and communicate through music– or at least that’s the best way the human mind can interpret it. As such, Gus is one of the few people alive talented enough to keep up with the Vanguard’s thought processes and act as a “Conduit.” Which … isn’t exactly a pilot, but it’s close enough. Stuff’s complicated. I rather liked the music angle, as it gave a unique limitation on just who can operate the book’s mecha, as opposed to “only Japanese teenagers with improbable hair can operate the cool robots” kind of stuff that you see in a lot of anime. And, speaking of anime, White shows their influences pretty clearly, as the Vanguards look and feel like a riff on the mecha from Evangelion, down to a five-minute time limit for fights (which I’m pretty sure Evangelion cribbed from Ultraman, but I digress).
Back to the music thing, though. In Valente’s Space Opera, music is just part of the ‘Space Eurovision’ gag, with various made-up genres of alien music referred to in passing just to be funny. In contrast, White lets their love for all genres of music shine through, eventually introducing a metal (well, djent) drummer and a bhangra singer as other Conduits. It’s really fun stuff, especially when all the Conduits have to get together for a jam session. It makes sense in context, honest.
If it were the music gimmick alone, I probably wouldn’t make such a direct comparison between White and Valente’s novels. However, both novels also draw on a particularly specific character archetype. Namely, the Bowie-esque ultrafabulous genderqueer omnisexual glam-rock disaster. Space Opera has one in Decibel Jones, and August Kitko has Ardent Violet. The trope goes back to Ziggy Stardust, at least, though I’m also reminded of Ruby Rhod from the Fifth Element, and there are probably several more examples I’m unaware of. Though it’s worth noting that Ardent stands out a bit from some of the other characters of this type because … well, Ardent has their shit together. They can play half a dozen instruments, they’ve got a loving family at home, and they’re absolutely devoted to Gus, despite only having known him for a very short period of time. August Kitko and the Mechas from Space is, at heart, a queer romance, albeit one with skyscraper-sized robots that fight each other with rocket-swords.
White can write a hell of an action scene, and so this book certainly delivers on hard-hitting mecha mayhem, especially in the last act. The Vanguards are apocalyptically powerful, leaning more towards the “super robot” scale of things, though not nearly as much as the chi-fueled Chrysalises of Iron Widow. I kind of love that there are enough mecha novels coming out these days to make such distinctions. Though really, the biggest thing that White focuses on in the novel’s sweeping mecha battles is just how terrifying such large machines are, even (or perhaps especially) to those inside of them.
Going back to the (perhaps unfair) comparison with Valente, August Kitko and the Mechas from Space had a more tightly written plot and a more nuanced look at music– but that doesn’t nessescarily make it a better novel. If anything, Space Opera hits harder in its ending, focusing on sheer, raw emotion as opposed to climactic space battles. They’re both solid books that start in the same place, but veer off in completely different directions. Which is fine! Variety is the spice of life and all that.
All and all, August Kitko and the Mechas from Space is a fun, weird ride– even if it does veer into some pretty bleak territory, especially in the first act. I the book starts with a fleet of unstoppable killer robots coming to wipe out humanity, and gets progressively more desperate from there. Which in turn make Gus’s successes shine all the more brighter. Furthermore, the uniqueness and unpredictability of the setting kept me second-guessing what would happen next, and looking forward to the next chapter. Or, well, the next book, as this is the first of White’s “Starmetal Symphony” series. Should be interesting to see what happens in the next few books. Maybe we’ll get a Conduit who plays in a ska band or something!
… okay that’s probably not happening but I’ll read the sequel anyway.
Book Review: Certain Dark Things, by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
It’s October! October means I should read some horror novels!
… which can be kind of hard to find? Or, rather, it’s the opposite question, as there’s a ton of stuff to pick from, and I’m kind of out of the loop when it comes to modern horror fiction. So a lot of the titles I saw available on my library app look, well, interchangeable? I fully know I’m wrong, as there’s a lot of cool stuff going on in Horror right now, it’s just that the titles and covers aren’t as descriptive as they could be? Unless they’re Five Nights at Freddy’s spinoff books, of which there are a surprising amount. (Read: more than one). Honestly, I just want something with a skeleton on the cover. Is that so much to ask?
Which brings us to Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Certain Dark Things, which may be one of the best books I’ve read with such a generic title. Titling a book is hard, of course, but Moreno-Garcia has certainly turned out some more evocative titles like Gods of Jade and Shadow or Mexican Gothic or The Daughter of Doctor Moreau.
Still, while the title may be generic, Certain Dark Things at least had a cover that got my attention (there’s a dog!), and here we are! And I must say, I’m really glad I picked it up.
Despite not having words like “blood” or “thirst” or so on in the title, Certain Dark Things is a vampire novel. It centers on Domingo, a trash-picking street kid, and his chance meeting with Atl, a young vampire on the run from her family’s enemies. Atl and Domingo come to rely on each other as they try to survive and ultimately escape Mexico City, while pursued by a rival vampire, the police, and the organized crime syndicates that have made Mexico City a no-vampire zone. It’s all in a sleek, urban fantasy/noir/cyberpunk-without-the-cyber aesthetic, which is right up my alley. Certain Dark Things is a moody, stylish novel punctuated by hard hitting scenes of gory horror. It’s not splatterpunk, but there’s enough in the novel for me to recommend a warning for the squeamish. Like, there’s a surgical amputation described in gruesome detail about two thirds through the book to watch out for.
Also, a sidenote: It wasn’t until I was several chapters into the book that I remembered I played a Mexican vigilante detective vampire in the last Vampire: The Masquerade game I played in, so, like, bonus I guess? #letmetellyouaboutmycharacter
Speaking of Vampire: The Masquerade, I’d be very surprised if Moreno-Garcia hadn’t played it before. I don’t say this as a criticism– quite the opposite, really. It’s kinda like how a lot of Fantasy writers these days have played D&D, and use the RPG’s tropes and themes to push into new ideas. As, in the world of Certain Dark Things, there are different strains of vampires, each with different powers and cultures and such. And they’re even called clans, so … y’know. Parallels. This said, where the main clans in Vampire: The Masquerade are fairly basic pop-culture vampire archetypes combined with a couple really unfortunate racial stereotypes, Moreno-Garcia does a far better job of making her clans unique. Atl, for example, is a descendant of Aztec vampires, who have talons and can sprout wings and so on, whereas the vampire hunting her is a Necro, a European vampire with shark teeth and addictive blood. Moreno-Garcia describes even more clans in an appendix at the end of the book, most of which don’t even appear during the plot, which just serves to make the setting deeper. It helps that each of Moreno-Garcia’s vampire clans is tied to a specific (and not always Transylvanian) culture and locale. So you have Chinese Vampires, Indian Vampires, African Vampires, and so on. And while they might not show up in the book, the few passing mentions other vampires get serve to add depth to the setting. There’s easily enough unexplored stuff in there to make for a sequel, if the author ever felt like it.
Of course, this depth doesn’t just come from the vampire stuff. Certain Dark Things takes place entirely in Mexico City, and Moreno-Garcia does such a good job of making it into an evocative setting it makes me wonder why I haven’t read more books set there. Moreno-Garcia takes advantage of Mexico City’s status as a sprawling metropolis with centuries of history and a vibrant street culture. Add in stark class divides and a cutthroat criminal underbelly, and Moreno-Garcia’s Mexico City is perfect for noir stories, with or without fangs.
It also helps that Moreno-Garcia populates her Mexico City with a cast of well written characters, all of whom are just trying to get by in desperate circumstances. Well, except for Nick, the Necro vampire hunting Atl. That dude’s a dick. The plot hops around between various viewpoint characters, allowing us to get a broader look at what’s going on– and in turn making some of the story beats hit even harder as we see them from multiple perspectives. The author also plays around with some noir and vampire tropes, most notably with Atl and Domingo, subverting the mortal/vampire romance in some ways, and leaning into it in others.
So yeah. Despite the nondescript title, Certain Dark Things is a great read for any fans of vampire stories. Silvia Moreno-Garcia brings lots of new ideas to the table while still hitting on all the beats that make vampire stories so popular. Also, Atl has a dog, who is indeed the best boy, so bonus. Go check it out!
Dial H For Houston 