Category: Urban Fantasy Page 43 of 46

Indexing, Episode 7: Bread Crumbs by Seanan McGuire

On August 20, 2013

In Fantasy, Fiction, Indexing, Seanan McGuire, Urban Fantasy

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Indexing by Seanan McGuire
Series: Indexing, #1.7

Episode 7: Bread Crumbs
Well, didn’t see any of that coming. Wow. Well, not totally true — I’d figured something a lot like what happened with Demi at the end of the episode was coming. But McGuire’s been leading us to that for awhile now, so that’s not a knock on her ability to surprise the reader. Given how many different things happened in this episode, that’s still a really good ratio.

More stuff — little things, episodic things, character things, overarching plot things, comic things, curious things, puzzling things — happened in this episode than any other. The pacing was far different, too — there was an urgency to everything that unfolded that matched what was going on for the characters. The team split up to deal with several narrative events — their night was chaotic, messy, and terrible — and the writing matched that. I read this a few days ago, and more than any single plot point, that feeling sticks with me.

Not that the plot points have faded — this is one of those bits of writing that burns itself into your brain for awhile. Every character is well-served, even the constantly under-utilized Andy. He gets more ink — and action — here than in the first six episodes combined. We learn a lot about him along the way — and while Jeff is featured as much as he usually is, we learn as much about him as Andy.

This is an episode where the changes to the narrative are front and center, on display for Henry’s team to see as clearly as it is for the reader — and the rest of the Agency. Not just the potentially earth-shattering events are lived through, but paradigm-shifting realizations are reached. The road for these five just got a lot bumpier ahead.

In the midst of this heaviness, McGuire puts a well-placed bit of comedy (possibly two, depending how you take the latter). Henry and Sloane are working to keep a Peter Pan from attempting to launch himself off a roof and discover that he really can’t fly. I wondered if instead of trying to stop him, what if they made him think a lot of happy thoughts — would that have actually permitted him to fly? In a world where a Snow White manifestation can actually talk to birds, I wouldn’t have thought so. But maybe. With time running out and their normal efforts failing, Sloane does the smartest, most inventive thing I’ve seen anyone in this book do to help this boy grow up. I laughed out loud as I realized what she was up to, and kept it up through her execution. I’m still not sure why Henry was so against it.

I’m more invested in this story than I’ve been at any point since I started reading it, and cannot wait for Episode 8.

Indexing, Episode 6: Fox’s Tongue by Seanan McGuire

By HCNewton

On August 17, 2013

In Fantasy, Fiction, Indexing, Seanan McGuire, Urban Fantasy

Indexing by Seanan McGuire
Series: Indexing, #1.6

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Episode 6: Fox’s Tongue
Again, I’ll just say that without more grounding in the normal way the narrative works in this world it’s hard to get too invested in/fully understand the way it’s working differently now. If McGuire’d asked me, I’d have told her to give us an episode or two of the status quo before Henry has to toss caution to the wind and recruit Demi. But the status is not quo — and McGuire didn’t ask me, so who cares? (frankly, as long as I get my regular Toby Daye fixes, I really don’t care how the rest of her stuff comes out, even this one, which I’m generally positive about.)

This particular case is interesting enough on its face — but once you go behind the surface, this could get really, really ugly. The plot twists and turns in these few pages are very engaging, just the kind of thing to really draw in the reader.

The character moments for Henry and Sloane are likely the best in this series — Henry seems capable and useful — something I’ve not really seen from her — particularly when she dips into her Snow White-ness for the sake of the investigation. And Sloane grappling with her (true?) self was very effective. I was less impressed with the use of Demi here — her being overly honest and complete with her reports was a good, rookie touch. But where’s the training, why weren’t her teammates on top of that thing — she needs to be trained, not only in the written words and procedures, but in the unwritten policies of her team. They’ve really dropped the ball with her.

McGuire really seems to be pointing at someone as the Big Bad of the series — I’m not sure I want to go where she appears to be leading — it’s almost too easy that way. Then again, sometimes the subtle approach isn’t the best. I guess I’ll see over the next 6 installments.

Indexing, Episode 5: Cruel Sister by Seanan McGuire

By HCNewton

On August 16, 2013

In Fantasy, Fiction, Indexing, Seanan McGuire, Urban Fantasy

Whoops, behind again. Further than I thought, too. I knew I needed to read/talk about Episode 6, but I hadn’t realized that Episode 5 wasn’t up yet — I’d have sworn I posted it last month. Maybe I did. Maybe Internet Termites came along and ate it, leaving the rest of this blog.

—-

Indexing by Seanan McGuire
Series: Indexing, #1.5

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Episode 5: Cruel Sister
I thought I had things figured out — at least for the next 2-3 episodes, I thought she’d take the memetic incursion from the last episode and put it to work, and that this would last for a few episodes, if not turning into the Big Bad for the 12 as a whole.

What a relief to be wrong — the way that McGuire took things instead — a good, honest heart-to-heart rather than repeated covert assassination attempts might be smaller on the Drama Meter, but it ranks pretty high on my satisfactory use of characters meter. Characters — particularly those who work in close quarters together — need to talk more and combat less (not that I have a problem with good fight scenes, etc. — it’s just when they’re necessary and/or unavoidable, not the result of sit-com type misunderstandings and circumstances)

The cases that Henry and her team (aka, Henry and People Who Serve a Purpose) have been dealing with lately, the narrative isn’t acting like they expect/have been lead to believe is necessary. That’s definitely the situation this time, which for some reason appeals to me more than the others. Maybe it’s the way that this one veered from the norm, maybe it’s because I’m getting a better and better idea what the norm is supposed to be. Or maybe I just have a thing for people poisoning their families.

I hope it’s not the latter.

I’m thinking we could use more development of each idea in this episode (and in retrospect, the previous episodes, too) — it felt really rushed. Almost too rushed to keep going with. I don’t think each of these is a book-length idea (but it might be), but they need more space than they’re currently getting, at least 2x the words.

Still, a good read, with a lot of tantalizing possibilities for the next episodes. I need to just stop trying to guess what’s going to happen and just enjoy the ride. Don’t see that happening, but that’s what I should do.

Non-Fictional Feelings for Fictional Characters

By HCNewton

On August 15, 2013

In Dogs, Harry Dresden, Harry Potter, Iron Druid Chronicles, Nero Wolfe/Archie Goodwin, News/Misc., Spenser

A slightly different post this morning, I’ve been trying some behind-the-scenes work here on the blog this morning — composition, infrastructure, design, etc. The books that I’m overdue to review are hard to write about, I’m plugging away at 4 different reviews right now that I absolutely want to get right , and that’s time-consuming. Also, Grossman’s YOU: A Novel took 2 or 3 days longer to read than I’d expected — worth the time, but it did sort of mess up my schedule. So, like I said. Something different.

—–

I saw that picture on Grammarly.com‘s facebook page*, and as one does, shared it, which prompted a friend to ask what some of my favorite fictional characters were. I decided to limit the list to fictional characters from books (a. see the picture and b. see this blog), and to characters I had “non-fictional feelings” for — Hannibal Lecter was a favorite (for 2 books, anyway), but I had no emotional attachment to him, or Evanovich‘s Ranger — fun character, but don’t really care about the guy. Here, with added commentary, is my list.

Archie Goodwin — this is the name that jumped immediately to mind. Archie’s the big brother I never had — the quick, agile wit; the athleticism; the way with the ladies — and the rest of the things that older brothers so often exemplify to those of us who never had one (on the other hand, we didn’t have to share a bedroom). ‘Course he makes the list.
Spenser — it’s almost impossible to spend as much time in a guy’s head as I have Spenser’s (or Archie’s) and not have some sort of emotional bond there. Everything I said about Archie applies here too, actually.
Harry Dresden — Chicago’s resident Wizard P. I. He feels like a friend. Hanging with Harry for a night of RPGs, Double Whoppers, and McAnally’s beer sounds ideal.
Scout Finch — she’s plucky, honest, a born-reader, and loves her pa (even when she doesn’t understand him). She’s had a soft spot in my heart longer than most of the people on this list.
Hermione Granger — sure, her famous buddy still gets all the press. But it’s this brave, clever, stubborn and resourceful gal who’s the most consistent hero in the series — and the one you can count on for genuine emotional moments. (this isn’t to take away anything from Ron, Luna, Albus, Neville, Sirius, Dobby, etc. — but Hermione alone manages to do it in every book in the series)
Chet Little / Oberon — it felt like a cheat listing these separately, and it just looked wrong to leave one of them off the list. So…I cheated. Both of these charming gentlemen will win you over within a few pages (in Dog On It and Hounded, respectively), and after you spend a few books with them, they’ll have stolen your heart. They make you laugh, they make you worry — and in Hunted, Oberon commits himself to one of the bravest acts I’ve seen, and choked me up a bit. The humans these guys live with almost make the list just on their testimony.
Angela Gennaro — if you hadn’t grown attached to Angie already, especially after Darkness, Take my Hand‘s events, there’s just no way you can’t fall apart with her at the end of Gone, Baby, Gone

Let me hear from you, reader/follower/happener-upon-this-post — who do you have non-fictional feelings for?

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* I looked but couldn’t find the source for this, otherwise I’d have cited it. If you know who should get the credit, please let me know.

Kitty in the Underworld by Carrie Vaughn

By HCNewton

On August 2, 2013

In Carrie Vaughn, Fiction, Kitty Norville

Kitty in the Underworld by Carrie Vaughn
Series: Kitty Norville, #12

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I’m a little surprised at my rating for this one — not that Vaughn’s not more than capable of writing a four or five-star book — but based on my reactions while reading which were definitely not favorable. But my reactions were strong enough — based on the claustrophobic note frequently struck here, and how much I cared about what Kitty was doing/going through — that I knew Vaughn had delivered. Hadn’t necessarily written the book I wanted/expected, but she got the job done very effectively.

N.B. I get vaguely spoilery beyond here — I don’t think it’s too terrible, nothing I’d really have minded reading before picking up this book.

So the idea behind Kitty ~~Drinks the Kool-Aid~~ in the Underground is that while some vampires, and Kitty herself think the whole Regina Luporum thing is a joke, there are some who take it very seriously. So seriously, that they kidnap Kitty to get her assistance in making a major attack on Roman/Dux Bellorum.

Now, this may strike you as a particularly stupid way to get someone to help you out — as it should, it definitely strikes Kitty that way. But for whatever reason/delusion, her kidnappers don’t see it that way.

Now, over the last 11 books, we’ve seen impetuous Kitty, rash Kitty, leaping-before-she-looks Kitty — and while Ben and Cormac grit their teeth and fret, the reader just smiles, content in our knowledge that this is just Kitty being Kitty. However, in Kitty ~~gets Stockholm Syndrome~~ in the Underground we see Kitty being just stupid.

She gives a magic user (that she doesn’t know) access to her blood. She lets a strange vampire feed off of her. She passes up chances to escape. She lets her guard down with her captors. Now, Kitty’s generally quick to trust — which is part of her charm — but she generally has some sort of basis for that. Not here. Well, at least no rational basis. Here’s she’s just so desperate to take down Dux Bellorum, that she throws reason and caution to the wind.

She spends large amount of time being rational, thinking things through, reacting as she should — and then she seems to shut that down to work with these people. I talked back to the book a lot (this is a behavior I don’t typically engage in at all). My favorite werewolf had taken leave of her senses and was risking it all.

This book should’ve been twice as long (at least). Kitty needed more time in the cave before she acted the way she acted. The reader needed to get a better idea of the rich and colorful characters that were introduced here. It would’ve been nice to see Kitty’s pack at work trying to find and rescue her. So much of what was going on in this book was new, terribly interesting, and worthy of exploration, it’s a shame we didn’t get the chance.

Although, a longer book would’ve likely given me a stroke. So I shouldn’t complain.

For all my gripes, it was a tense, taught adventure that will have interesting (to say the least) ramifications going on. Now I have to start counting down for the next one. Can’t come soon enough.

Beautiful Chaos by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl

By HCNewton

On July 23, 2013

In Fantasy, Fiction, Urban Fantasy, YA/MG/Children's Books

Beautiful Chaos by Kami Garcia
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

So, this is still a really well-written series, with a rich cast of characters and a fully-realized setting that puts The Caster Chronicles ahead of several similar series. However, this installment — by and large — seems rather pointless. Its main task seems to be setting the stage for Book 4.

Yes, there’s some character development — but not enough, it’s like they’re afraid to go too far with some of the supporting characters (like Link and Ridley) at this point, they have to leave something for the next installment. Yes, we get some vital back story, but . . . well, that’s pretty much it. There’s a couple hundred pages of set up, a quick action scene and a conclusion that isn’t.

A few other notes:

It took Ethan and Lena far too long to decode the song lyrics. They’ve been doing this for about 2 years now, right? And they’re this slow? Hard to root for people when they’re acting far stupider than they are — especially this many of them at once.
For people who talk about loving and respecting each other as much as these people do — they don’t communicate. On those rare occasions when they do, actual progress is made. Amma and Ethan, in particular, should’ve conversed, not hidden things from each other.
For a series with such a strong sense of place, man, these authors show such contempt for the citizenry and culture of Gatlin. Isn’t it possible to talk about problems with the society without vilifying it?
I was unclear whether the devastation brought about by Lena’s choice (and Abraham Ravenwood & Co’s reaction to it) was limited to Gatlin, or if it extended beyond that. If it’s just Gatlin — where’s the press, the scientific community, the feds, looky-loos, etc. converging on the area to investigate it? If it’s a larger area affected, what are the explanations? Assuming they’re able to defeat Abraham in the next book, how does the world go back to normal?
So many things — Ethan’s taste issues, Link’s abilities, foremost amongst them — are introduced, and explored a little bit, and then dropped. Why?

I have confidence that Garcia and Stohl will pull this off (mostly) in the last 50 pages or so of Beautiful Redemption, and this will just fade into memory as a prolonged setup. But right now, it’s left a sour taste in my mouth.

Blood Work by Kim Harrison

By HCNewton

On July 19, 2013

In Comics, F-J, Fiction, Kim Harrison, The Hollows (Rachel Morgan), Urban Fantasy

Blood Work by Kim Harrison
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I’m trying to come up with a nice way to talk about this one, but I don’t think I can.

The writing was . . . lacking. It seemed like notes for a story more than anything else. My guess was that Harrison was learning how to write a comic script, knew she couldn’t put the same kind of detail she normally puts in her 400+ page novels, and over-corrected. It’s a potentially interesting tale, but just one poorly told.

And the art? Stiff, unnatural, not terribly consistent. It didn’t look so much like capturing motion or movement, but a series of awkward poses.

Honestly, I gave this an extra star because it scratched the itch wondering how things started between the two (didn’t eliminate the itch as it’s only part of the story, and so poorly told). Really, that’s the best that can be said for this waste of time. Despite this, I’ll probably read the sequel, just to find out what happens. And I’ll probably not be thrilled with myself throughout it.

Dream Dark by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl

By HCNewton

On July 17, 2013

In Fiction, Urban Fantasy, YA/MG/Children's Books

Dream Dark by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This is pretty much the textbook definition of “meh.” The primary purpose of this short story “of Gatlin’s first, and only, Linkubus” is to provide a bridge between Beautiful Darkness and Beautiful Chaos, which is does well enough.

But the thing is, there’s already a land-bridge between the two books — Chapter 1 of Beautiful Chaos. Dream Dark is totally unnecessary.

Add to that the fact that practically nothing happens. Nothing we need to know, anyhow. We get more details on the aftermath of Link being bitten by the half-Incubus, and how he deals with it early on — but we don’t learn anything we need to know. And it’s not even that particularly entertaining.

If this story’d been told from Link’s POV rather than Ethan’s, maybe that could’ve been enough to justify this. But as it is…meh.

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P.S. For the record, I’d have felt this way about the story even if I hadn’t bought the e-copy and then discovered that it was printed in the back of my paperback copy of Beautiful Chaos. Really.

Indexing, Episode 4: Blended Family by Seanan McGuire

By HCNewton

On July 4, 2013

In Fiction, Indexing, Seanan McGuire, Urban Fantasy

Wow. Read the episode and am writing about it within two days of release? Yay me.

—-

Indexing by Seanan McGuire
Series: Indexing, #1.4

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Episode 4: Blended Family
McGuire’s feeling confident enough in this world she’s created to throw out her typical approach to this episode (it feels weird to say things like that about a 4th installment, but I’ve been reading this long enough now, that it feels like more). She plays with time, POV, structure and her reader’s expectations.

The result is a very strong episode. We get a much better idea of what makes’ Sloane tick, how her mind works in abeyance, the struggles she faces as someone in that state. We also get to see a Narrative Intrusion handled in a way we’re not used to (and we’re not the only ones who think that way).

Best of all, the ending sets up a potentially very exciting episode or more for the future. Possibly even the bulk of the series. Unlike the last episode, I thought this one displayed the strengths of this episodic method of story telling, and I’m looking forward to Episode 5 with a larger sense of anticipation than I have the rest of the series.

Indexing, Episode 3: Honey Do by Seanan McGuire

By HCNewton

On July 2, 2013

In Fiction, Indexing, Seanan McGuire, Urban Fantasy

One day, hopefully before the last episode, I will read/review the episode within 24 hours of it being posted. It’s a small goal, yet one I can’t seem to reach…

—-

Indexing by Seanan McGuire
Series: Indexing, #1.3

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Episode 3, Honey Do
This episode shows the weakness of this distribution model — McGuire had to wrap things up too quickly, too neatly. This was something that deserved more exploration, not to be wrapped up in a bow after so many words. If I were to read somewhere that McGuire realized that this part was too long, so she had to rush to the conclusion, I’d buy that in a heartbeat. I like that explanation better than anything else.

Is there any other training the group does besides on-the-job? Seriously. The Pied Piper is clearly not ready for field work — moreover, the team isn’t ready to work with her. Henry, in particular, throws her at a situation without thinking through the ramifications, and turns a bad situation worse. Are things really so dire that they have to rush the recruits into the field before anyone knows what to do with them? Was the team unable to handle things before she came aboard? (I mean, other than the incident that made them activate her).

This points to my biggest problem with this Episode: Henry. She’s a lousy leader. Other than tendency to bark orders at people, I saw nothing to make me think, “yeah, she’s a good leader — capable, competent, resourceful.” I was just unimpressed with her, and I’m pretty sure we’re not supposed to be.

Despite that . . . I enjoyed this one over all. Particularly the use of Sloane — who had been the part of the series I thought worked least. But we got a better picture of her as an agent, not just a comic foil, or shoe shopper. More of this, please. I thought the rest of the supporting cast — up to, and including, our Goldilocks — were just what they needed to be. Just need to get Henry to a better place and keep Sloane where she is now, and this thing will really start cooking.