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Once More With Feeling

May 23, 2017 by TylerDFC 4 Comments

Old wounds, old enemies, and old questions all play a big part in season 10 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer from Dark Horse Comics. For the first time since the series was restarted in comics format this season feels the most like the original television series in both scope and the characters and how the interact with each other. If you are not caught up on the series I will try to quickly summarize the pertinent bits. If you are not familiar with the series in television than I have no idea why you are reading this anyway. Get ye to Netflix and start binging what is one of the greatest television series of all time. Yes, I said All Time. Come at me.

You should recall that at the end of Season 7, Sunnydale had been destroyed after Buffy and her army of potential Slayers defeated the First Evil. The comic series begins about 6 months after the destruction of Sunnydale, an act which the US government labels as an act of terrorism forcing Buffy, the potentials, and all the surviving Scooby gang on the run. As so often happens on the show, magic has consequences and the spell that unlocked all of the potential slayers worldwide has seriously disrupted the balance of magic. That event is the catalyst for the entire canonical comic series resulting in the destruction of all magic at the end of Season 8, a re-emergence of magic in Season 9, and in Season 10 the writing of the new rules of magic after this forced reboot as it were. It’s a smart, sometimes dizzying narrative that feels perfectly tied to the show, just with a billion dollar special effects budget.

As Season 10 begins the Scoobs are learning to deal with a new set of rules for magic and are learning that these rules are being written as they go in the book of Vampyr, of which the Scoobs have the only copy. A new breed of vampires has emerged, one that can survive in sunlight and has all the powers of Dracula, and this is causing its own share of headaches. The supernatural is no longer hidden from the world at large and now everyone knows about the Slayer, the demons, the Hellmouths, and the many many things that want to eat us. Police departments and the military now have witches on staff and departments dedicated to supernatural crimes. It is a world remade, young, and dangerous and as so often happened on the show, Buffy, Willow, Xander, Dawn, Spike, and all the others are trying to figure out where they fit in.

Season 10 is the first time since the comic series began that things have sort of calmed down and are back to “normal”. The Slayer goes out on patrol, Giles, Andrew and Dawn “hit the books”, Willow provides magical back up, Spike and Xander are the muscle. As so often happens this doesn’t last for long and Season 10 ends up hearkening back to Season 6 in both its themes and through direct references. The ghost of Anya is haunting Xander but only he can see her, Buffy and Spike decide to enter in to a relationship again, Andrew is racked with guilt over killing Jonathan and Tara. The weight of responsibility starts to wear on all of them, fracturing their friendships just when they need to be at their strongest. Because as all things Buffy, not everything is as it seems and too late our heroes realize how their self absorption has allowed a powerful figure to rise from the shadows to threaten the world.

For a series that up to this point has been heavy on the action, it’s refreshing that Season 10 is much more compact in scope and focuses on the interpersonal relationships and dialogue. In some degrees there is some repetition of the arcs from season 6 but in story time that was more than 5 years before. Season 6 was centered on these characters making the awkward and at times painful adjustment to adulthood. Now the characters are adults in their mid to late 20’s and do seem to have learned from past mistakes. This season is not afraid to show the heroes as decidedly non heroic at times either. Buffy is even more hesitant to make decisions than usual, Xander doesn’t reveal that Anya is haunting him, Spike is guilt ridden over his near rape of Buffy in season 6 and is terrified of losing control again, Giles is learning to cope as a middle aged mind in a 10 year old’s body (long story that one) and is prone to adolescent tantrums. The morale in each case is the easy path is the road to ruin. If the Scoobs can overcome their fear and doubts and come together as a team is the biggest question the season poses. This gives the series an emotional center that is just as compelling as the action.

The writing team this time includes Nicolas Brendon and it may be his involvement that really makes Xander’s dialogue sound natural to the character. It also is Xander’s best character arc yet in the comic series and it’s great to see that interaction with Anya one more time even though we know its going to have a bitter sweet ending. The illustrations run the gamut from “Excellent” to “kind of weird but you get used to it”. The cover art is as spectacular as ever and special notice must be made to the illustration work by Rebekah Isaacs.

As a fan of the show I loved Season 10. It’s complex and exciting and serves as a welcome companion piece to Season 6 while resetting the action to something a little less grandiose than Seasons 8 and 9. Very much recommended.

…thou shalt see that it is barren.

May 20, 2017 by TylerDFC 1 Comment

Like many of you I have had an adverse reaction to the state of politics over the last few hellish months since President Eats-His-Steak-With-Catsup-Like-A-Goddamn-Child was sworn in to office. To be honest it still feels like a nightmare and I find myself jolting at least once a day when I remember that the people of the United States elected that lying gasbag as the President. This is why I don’t watch shows like Black Mirror. When this is our reality there is no reason to introduce more fantastical shit to be afraid of when we are living in the Twilight Zone on a daily basis.

MORE HERE!

Not at All Magically Realistic

May 3, 2017 by sistercoyote 2 Comments

Y’all.

Y’all.

Maybe I wasn’t the target audience for this book but it was so bad.

[Read more…]

So you wanna play with magic?

February 10, 2017 by TylerDFC 6 Comments

This dark fantasy is Game of Thrones meets The Night Circus and will appeal to any fans of realistic fantasy. The first book of a three part trilogy (part 3 releases February 2017), A Darker Shade of Magic is an outstanding novel that will enthrall readers and insure you are up late reading “just one more page.”

There is not one London, but four. There is the world of Henry III, a Grey London without magic. There is Red London, where magic is in balance. White London, a world where magic is starved. And Black London, a world overwhelmed by magic, lost and sealed away from the others. Kell is Antari, powerful magicians that alone can walk between the separated Londons. Delilah Bard is a thief in Grey London who dreams of being a pirate and escaping her squalor for a life of adventure. One evening she chances to meet Kell in a dark alley and picks his pocket, setting in motion a chain of events that will give Delilah more adventure than she can handle.

There is so much to like in A Darker Shade of Magic that I encourage you to stop reading this review, get the book, read it, and do so as soon as possible. In fact you can buy it here! Victoria Schwab (writing as V.E. Schwab) has created a world populated with characters that you instantly want to know more about. These characters are well defined through their actions and we are able to see what kind of people they are rather than have it told to us. The villains are truly evil while still being understandable in their motives. The heroes are not of the white knight variety and have their own weaknesses that make them far more interesting than a cast of Dudley Do Rights.

Delilah “Lila” Bard is one of the best characters to come along in some kind. She is a thief doing what she can to survive and has no hesitation in ending the life of anyone that threatens her. She looks with longing to the sea and plans for the day she can command a ship of her own sailing the ocean as a pirate king. She is a hard as stone, take no shit anti-heroine who has never cared for anyone but herself. As these stories go you know that she will end up doing the right thing. But Schwab never compromises her characters for a cheap special moment. For instance, last in the novel Lila must infiltrate a masquerade ball. A local shopkeeper offers to dress her so she can attend. If you read that line and assumed Lila is given a spectacular dress that causes everyone to see what a beauty she really is beneath the sneer and bruises you should be forgiven because I had the same fear. Lila soundly rejects the offer of a dress for an elegant pair of pants and matching jacket that allows her to conceal her many weapons and strike the exact look that she has dreamed of. It’s a clichéd setup that is made powerful through the deft writing and that Schwab never betrays her characters and their personalities for a cheap emotional beat.

Compared to Lila the Antari, Kell, is slightly duller but becomes more interesting the more time he spends with Lila. He knows far better than she does what is at stake in the plot they find themselves in. Whereas Lila is on an adventure, the treachery against Kell is deeply personal and sweeps his family up into danger with him. He is a rogue but trying to the right thing and fix the mistake that caused all the trouble to begin with.

The portrayal of magic is also exceptionally well done. There are rules, those rules cannot be broken, and magic doesn’t suddenly start doing something it cannot because the plot requires it. For the Antari, magic is literally in the blood and to cast the most powerful spells requires blood to do it. Luckily Antari heal relatively quickly so the many, many cuts they inflict on themselves for the necessary ingredient in their spells doesn’t pose too much of a problem. As one character says, “Its very difficult to kill an Antari.,”and the book proves that time and time again. It may not kill them, but the characters all take a huge level of punishment over the story.

A Darker Shade of Magic is the first part of a trilogy that doesn’t require any other books to enjoy this one. It tells a self contained story that offer no stinger for the next book. I have my suspicions on where the next installment is going but it is based entirely on the events of the book and my understanding of the characters and certain rules of magic. Time will tell if I’m correct but probably not a lot of time because I plan to jump in to the second book, A Gathering of Shadows, as soon as possible. Typically I do not like to read series installments in a row but in this case I very much want to know what happens next. When a book fills me with that kind of need it’s a special one indeed.

You Really Shouldn’t Share Mascara…That’s My Takeaway From All of This

February 10, 2017 by Melina Leave a Comment

This book keeps popping up on book lists everywhere and then someone in our book club picked it, but then changed her mind to have us read Just Mercy instead (this was last year which is why I don’t have a review for it). But…I had already purchased the book and so I decided that eventually I would get to it.

After reading The Kind Worth Killing I realized that I’ve been missing suspense and mystery in my life. Soooo…I turned to The Woman in Cabin 10. Sold as a type of “locked room mystery”, Lo (Lauren Blacklock) is a travel writer who has to determine if she’s paranoid or if she actually “witnessed” what she believes that she did. She was chosen to represent her magazine on an exclusive new yacht. Lo, copes with anxiety, claustrophobia, is dealing with the trauma of suffering a recent break in at her home ( which she was present for). This is supposed to set us up for a possibly unreliable witness. Add all the alcohol that she drank at dinner the night the incident occurred and you have really cool security officers asking her, “Can I ask how much you had to drink last night?” *SHUDDER.

Anyways, Lo, is prepping for the first big night’s festivities when she realizes that she forgot her mascara and her smokey eyes aren’t going to look complete without the full mascara treatment (preach). Going to the cabin next to hers, she knocks to find an attractive young lady who seems startled to see her. The girl tells her to keep the mascara and basically boots her out of the room. At dinner, no one seems to know who Lo is talking about and in fact, Cabin 10 is empty. Later that night Lo awakens to something, she hears a splash and maybe someone crying for help. Going to the balcony she sees a blood smear on the screen. Quickly, Lo calls for help but by the time the AWFUL security guard arrives the blood smear is gone, there’s no luggage or girl in Cabin 10 and of course, everyone knows that Lo has suffered a breakdown before and that “anxiety meds and alcohol don’t mix” so clearly she’s just delusional (the implied tone, not mine…in fact, I found that rude and annoying).So where is this girl? Did she exist? If so, what has happened to her? What will happen to Lo if she continues to pursue these loose ends? She’s already getting dangerous messages to stay out of it…but how can she, when she herself has been a victim before?

This was a popcorn read for me. I was fully invested in the story for the majority of the book. When things start getting revealed (and there is a MAJOR telling plot point that jumps off the page at you when you hear a character say it early on you know something’s up), it unravels quite a bit. BUT, I enjoyed it and I’d recommend it especially for a book club read. It’s pretty mindless and tense for a good portion of the book and as I always like to draw comparisons to Christopher Pike (my middles school self’s lord and savior), it’s on that level of camp for the reveal . I didn’t love the anxiety=crazy angle (in fact, I kind of hated it); I feel like we’ve moved passed or moving passed that presumption as a society but I know Ms. Ware was trying to create a character that wouldn’t be believed…but hey Ware, she was on a boat with mostly men who weren’t listening to her anyway, you could’ve just stuck with that!

Maybe You’re A Virgin Because You’re A Jerk?

January 30, 2017 by Melina Leave a Comment

I’ll just start this off by saying that I didn’t like this book…at all. I was sucked in by Amazon’s statement, “for readers of Rainbow Rowell and Maria Semple” who like offbeat characters and subtle humor or some such nonsense. It’s 100% not funny. Not even once did I giggle or even crack a smile while reading this book. No, dear friends, do not fall for this at all because it’s simply not true, the main character is not funny–she’s a nightmare and nothing she’s doing seems to have any comedic effect. Instead I kept thinking, “How is this person 26? She acts like she’s a 6 year old”. I found this title while looking for a book for my book gang (cooler than a book club and way more fierce) and so I gave it a chance–and then promptly picked a different book-because I thought this one was pretty, pretty bad.

This is the story of 26 year old Julia Greenfield who is still a virgin but doesn’t want to be. Her obsession with her virginity is something that she deals with on (what seems like) a minute by minute basis as she imagines what it would be like, or what so and so would be like as a lover and instead of making actual connections with other human beings, she just seems to be bumbling through her life badly. She decides to spend her summer in North Carolina with her Aunt Vivienne when her parents make the surprising move to Costa Rica (maybe? I don’t really remember). Having not seen her aunt for years, it’s an awkward arrangement but very quickly, Aunt Viv reveals that she too, is a virgin (at the age of 60). Julia pretty much feels like she doesn’t want to turn out like her aunt (which in my estimation, I’d much rather be Aunt Viv that a terrible person like Julia) and so she goes on a mission to lose the dreaded “V card”…as seen in such movies as Road Trip, or Sixteen Candles…but…wait, there’s just one problem–the problem is that Julia is a really unlikable character. For instance, I think I’d rather have Annie Wilkes play doctor on my ankles than have to hang out with Julia. And it’s really no wonder that she hadn’t had intimacy before because she’s definitely stunted emotionally. But don’t worry, there’s no actual growth while she’s with her aunt!

Julia bumbles through her time there, she makes terrible choices, destroys her aunt’s art in an act of sheer selfishness that made me want to stop reading the book, she may or may not have lost her virginity, she definitely attempted to save the day by hosting a gallery show with her aunt’s artwork, and then moves away to continue her life. The end. I don’t really want you to ever waste your time or money on this book. I feel like there’s an interesting story here–but that story was Aunt Vivienne’s and we barely got to focus on her at all. It’s a shame.