Category Archives: Reviews

Reviews, Video Games

Final Fantasy VII – They are coming back.

Leave a comment

Last week, I came across the following trailer on my Facebook wall and, at first, I couldn’t believe my eyes. This is something that I had dreamed about ever since Sony came up with Playstation 3, and it will finally become a reality, after almost 20 years.

Now I have a confession to make.  Final Fantasy VII is one of my favorite games of all times, and certainly my favorite amongst all of the Final Fantasy games (with Final Fantasy X coming close second).

I still remember the first time I played it. I had just graduated from high school and started my first year in college along with three of my high school friends. We were extremely busy with studies and all of us also worked part time to pay for school, but we had a rule: we always met on Saturday nights to spend time together. Since we were broke college students, we rarely went out. We met at my place instead, because I was the only one who had moved out of my parents’ house at that time. I was also the only one to own a Playstation.

We would play table top RPG games or watch TV, or just talk about the books we read, things we did during the week. And sometimes we would play games. I remember that I picked up Final Fantasy VII in a second hand game store in 1998 almost as an afterthought. I had never heard of the Final Fantasy series before, or never played a JRPG game. It was cheap and we had ran out of games to play on Saturday nights, so into the bag it went.

Needless to say that we were hooked from the very first Saturday night, my friends and I. I don’t think any other game had managed to absorb us so completely before (and very few did after). We would spend the whole evening playing, then the rest of the week talking about it and discussing boss strategies, best places to level those pesky materia, which equipment was best for which character and so on and so forth. We spend a lot of wonderful hours together drinking tea or wine when we could afford it, eating whatever we could cook and discovering the wonderfully complex story of Cloud and company…

I have played many games since then, and I have replayed Final Fantasy VII several times as well and it never gets boring. I love the world. I love the story this game tells. I love all the characters, even if I’m not a very big fan of Cloud. And I will always be grateful to Squaresoft for creating the most wonderful antagonist of all times – Sephiroth. I even wrote a whole blog post about him about a year ago, if you want to check it out.

So when I think about this game, I think about wonderfully detailed characters and an amazing plot, but also hours of laughter and good times I spent with my best friends. So yes, I’m excited about FF7 coming back, even if my friends are a continent away now and living their own lives. I can’t wait to play it. I’ll even buy a PS4 just for that.

But I am also a bit scared of this new take on a game I love, because Square Enix announced that it wouldn’t just be a remastering of the original game, but a remake. Remake means new vision. Remake means telling the story in a different way and often changing it to fit this new vision. What if I start playing this new Final Fantasy VII and absolutely hate what they’ve done with the story? Would it taint my love for the characters and the story of the original as well? So I will be waiting for this release with an equal part of excitement and fear, and hope for the best… and wish that I could gather all of my friends around my PS4 and TV one more time and share this game with them like in the good old times.

books, Fantasy, Reviews, Steampunk, Urban fantasy

The Shadow Revolution: Crown & Key 1 by Clay Griffith, Susan Griffith.

Leave a comment

Stars: 2.5 out of 5.

This is the first book in a new series and as such, it has the thankless task of introducing a brand new world and new characters while keeping it interesting with a good plot. Because of that, I always try to be more lenient when reading and reviewing them.

All in all, The Shadow Revolution was an entertaining read. The plot moved along at a steady pace with the right balance of action and explanation to keep it interesting but also give the reader time to breathe between action-packed scenes.

I liked the two main protagonists as well. Simon Archer is a spell-casting scribe as well as a dandy, well known in the upper society circles for his romantic conquests. Kate Anstruther is an alchemist as well as a true lady who never loses her composure even in the heat of battle.  It was interesting to see those two very different people try and work together and slowly move from grudging mutual respect to admiration and then even affection.

However, that’s where the good ends and the problems start. There isn’t much to say about the supporting characters, which was disappointing. I almost felt like they were a collection of stereotypes.

Nick Barker, Simon’s mentor and friend, prefers getting drunk in a pub than risking his life battling the things that go bump in the night. It’s hinted that he is powerful and rather old, but nothing in his behavior throughout the book really shows that.

Then we have Imogen, Kate’s younger sister, who is a carbon copy of one of the air-headed sisters from Pride and Prejudice. She is rebellious against the control her sister has over her life and sure of her own feminine powers over men at the beginning of the book, then vulnerable, driven mad and otherwise useless for the rest of the book. Basically, Imogen gets fridged just to drive Kate’s character development and involvement in the whole story, which is a cheap move, in my opinion.

Malcolm MacFarlane is another walking stereotype – a Scottish monster-hunter who embodies all the tropes about Scotsmen that I hate. He is loud, he is rude, he is boorish and uneducated, oh, and he has a short temper. Really? I’ve lived a year in Edinburgh, I can assure you that not all Scottish people are like that. In fact, most of them are not. It’s like saying that all Russians are drunks, or that all French wear berets and those ridiculous striped sweaters. I call that lazy worldbuilding.

Speaking of worldbuilding, it’s next to non-existent. I know that it’s hard to find the right balance in a book between showing the reader this new world the author has created and not boring them to death with info dumps, but the authors went into another extreme – they put no world building whatsoever.  It feels like they decided that just indicating that their story takes place in Victorian London is enough. Well, it’s not.

The world is a jumbled mess in this book. We have Victorian Society. We have magicians. We have werewolves. We have other creatures. But how all that works, we have no idea. The authors didn’t deem it important to explain the rules of their own world. So there are scribes and alchemists and other kinds of magicians, but what kinds? How do they differ? How do they coexist? No clue. There are brief mentions of an Order of mages that existed before, but is gone now, other than that – nothing.  I don’t need long info dumps. I’m more than willing to stick along for the ride and progressively discover more about the world, but I need at least some breadcrumbs to keep me going. I need to understand the rules to still be interested in the story. Here, I felt like the characters were just running through cardboard decoration, not a living breathing world.

As I said at the beginning, this is the first book in a series, so I’m willing to give it the benefit of doubt. Hopefully the next one will flesh out this world a bit more. If not, I don’t think I’ll stick with this series.

PS. I received an advanced copy of this book courtesy of NetGalley in exchange for a honest review.

 

books, Fantasy, Reviews

Jabberwocky by Theodore Singer.

Leave a comment

Stars 2 out of 5.

 

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review, and I really wanted to like this story more than I did.

The premise sounded interesting enough: A young man decides to undertake an epic quest which had been passed from father to son for 500 years. The quest is to find and kill the fantastic beast called Jabberwocky. Even though he has never been further away from home than a 2 days travel distance, he is enthusiastic about what he believes to be the biggest adventure of his life. He will encounter many strange and fantastical creatures on his journey and realize that his quest is not as much about a mystical monster, but about discovering his own worth.

So yes, this had the potential to be a very good tale of self-discovery where the hero, young and idealistic in the beginning of the story, slowly grows up and becomes a real man. Unfortunately, the realization fell short of my expectations.

I feel like a need to put a disclaimer here. I love stories with a strong and memorable voice. If the protagonist doesn’t jump from the page and straight into my head in the first chapter, chances are that I won’t finish the book. Unfortunately, Jabberwocky has no voice.

Oh, don’t get me wrong, it’s well written. The descriptions are beautiful and often even nostalgic. It feels though, that the author sometimes gets carried away by the strange places he is describing and the action slacks off. It’s a short novella, but I had to force myself not to skip ahead in some passages.

My problem is that I couldn’t empathize with Astreus. I couldn’t “see” him. Even after I finished the story, he remained a faceless name for me. It’s hard to follow a character you don’t care about.

I think the main reason for this is that the writing is too formal and indifferent shall I say? The author uses exactly the same voice to describe the city of cats and the island of immortals. But in the first place, Astreus just spends some time helping a cat in exchange for information on the Jabberwocky, whereas on the island, he encounters his first love and his first betrayal that almost brings him to suicide. Where is the passion and the desperation of this? I felt absolutely nothing.

My other problem is that the dialogues feel stilled and staged. Once again, everybody Astreus encounters talks the same, whether it’s a cat or an old noble who spent most of his life locked in his castle. A highly educated cat with a passion for chess cannot use the same words and phrases as a noble who barely knows how to read and write.

It’s a quick read and I liked exploring some of the places the author’s vivid imagination has created, but the novella would have been much more enjoyable if the writing had a bit more “life” to it.

books, Fantasy, Reviews, Urban fantasy

Moon Called (Mercy Thompson book 1) by Patricia Briggs.

2 Comments

Stars: 3 out of 5.

 

Since I had absolutely loved the Alpha and Omega series (you can read my review of Book 1 and Book 2), I decided to give this older series a go as well. They are set up in the same world after all, and some of the characters play a recurring role in both series.

 

What can I say? I was happy to come back to this world Mrs. Briggs created, because it’s fascinating and the worldbuilding is very well done. It’s a world where the fae have come out into the light of day, and now the whole world is trying to live with the consequences. And the werewolves might be forced to do that as well, because with the medical and technological advances, it’s getting harder and harder to keep their existence a secret. I was also happy to learn a bit more about pack structure and the complex hierarchy between the dominants and the submissive wolves and what it meant to be an Alpha.

 

I was NOT impressed with the role of women in this structure.  They are basically just an addition to their male mates (oh, not traditional relationships are also frowned upon). So if a dominant female mates with a submissive male, she is treated like a submissive wolf on the very bottom step of the hierarchy ladder. And if she is not mated, she is treated like an object to be protected / courted / dominated. Not cool, Mrs. Briggs, not cool at all.

 

I love Mercy. She is a fun character to follow – she is smart, independent, stubborn and tough as nails. She also loves to do a bit of mischief from now and then, so it’s no wonder that she shifts into a coyote. My problem with this book is that, unless the author plans on making the werewolf packs undergo a significant shift in mentality when they reveal themselves to the human world, if Mercy accepts to become a werewolf’s mate, she will lose everything that makes her such a great protagonist to follow.  She would become just one more female to be protected and robbed of her own agency.

 

And she understands that, that’s why she’s resisting tooth and nail and rejecting the advances of a certain very determined Alpha…  yet she still lives next to Adam, the Alpha of the local pack, and allows Samuel, who is another werewolf and who she used to have (possibly still has) a crush on to move in with her.  And no matter how much she resists and snarls, she still allows both of them to manipulate her and try to decide what’s best for her.

 

This is a very worrying tendency that I really hope not to see in the next book. I am also extremely surprised to see this kind of one-sided approach to relationships in this book, because it’s diametrically opposite to the relationship Anna and Charles have in Alpha and Omega, and they are part of the same world, after all.

 

The other thing that dampened my enthusiasm for this book is the love triangle between Mercy, Samuel and Adam. Or is it a rectangle, if you take Stefan the vampire into consideration as well? But that’s a particular pet peeve of mine. Call me naïve or deluded, but I believe that if you can’t choose between two people you supposedly love, then you don’t love either one of them. But that’s a personal quirk, and plenty of people love reading about love triangles it seems – just look at the YA shelves.

 

Anyway, I liked Moon Called, but definitely not as much as I loved the Alpha and Omega series.  I will probably give the second book a go, but if the worrying tendencies I’ve seen in this book persists, I might drop this series altogether and just read about Charles and Anna.

books, Fantasy, Post-Apocalyptic, Reviews, Urban fantasy

Radiant (Towers Trilogy Book 1) by Karina Sumner-Smith.

Leave a comment

Stars: 5 out of 5.

 

This book is a rare mixture of post apocalypse and anti-utopia with magic and even zombies thrown into the mix. It takes an exceptionally good plot and a strong protagonist to make such an mixture work, at least for me, but Karina Sumner-Smith hit the bulls eye with this novel.

 

This is a story about choices and consequences. It’s about growing up and realizing that sometimes the wellbeing of another person is more important than your own comfort. But more importantly, this story is about a true friendship between two very strong but very different girls. Xhea is a girl without magic in a world where everything and everyone lives and breathes magic, but she can see and talk to ghosts when normal people don’t even believe that they exist. Shai is one such ghost, but a ghost that is vibrating with magic when no ghost should be able to generate any.

 

There isn’t much backstory about the world Xhea and Shai live in, which actually makes sense, because Xhea has no way of knowing what brought in the cataclysm that left the extensive ruins she lives in. There are the Towers – beautiful floating semi-organic structures where those who were lucky enough to be born with strong magic live. They live in symbiosis with those Towers: they create and maintain them with their excess magic and in exchange the Towers give them a home and a place to belong. There is a complex web of politics and commercial treaties as well as non-aggression pacts between the Towers. Their citizens live sheltered lives of privilege compared to those who inhabit the Lower City.

 

Anyone who doesn’t possess enough magic to be useful to a Tower is cast down to try and carve a life out of the crumbling ruins of the ancient City that sprawls on the harsh and barren ground below the towers. But even here, on the ground, the level of your magic is important and the stronger spell casters are recruited by the communities living in the husks of several skyscrapers. There, much like in the distant Towers above, magic is the only currency. You can get a meal and a place to sleep for a few renai – plastic pieces infused with the caster’s magic. You can get more if you sign a servitude contract with the skyscraper that sheltered you.

 

Xhea doesn’t fit into this world no matter how much she would love to because she has no magic at all, not a glimmer, not a drop. To everybody else in this society she is worse than useless – she is a burden, an oddity that is to be ignored or eliminated. She manages to stay on this side of starvation by offering her services to those who want to get rid of their ghosts, or who want to talk to them. Business isn’t booming because not many people believe in ghosts, even if the more magically sensitive can sort of feel their presence next to them. Xhea is jaded and bitter and very much out for herself… until a well-dressed man from the Towers asks her to keep the ghost of his daughter for a few days in exchange for renai and food rations.

 

I loved Xhea. She comes across as rude and selfish at the beginning of the book, but, as I described earlier, she has every reason to be. She’d had to survive on her own for most of her life, and the only time she really cared for someone, that person ended up abandoning her. But she evolves. She changes. She goes above and beyond what’s asked of her to help Shai once she discovers what fate awaits the ghost.

 

Shai is a wonderful character as well. She could have been a typical damsel in distress – stuck and helpless, waiting for Xhea to save her, but the author managed to give her agency as well. Which is no small feat considering that she is already dead at the beginning of this story. Yes, Xhea saves Shai, but Shai saves Xhea as well. They are two broken children who had been hurt by the world around them but who manage to comfort each other and draw strength from one another even in the face of very unfavorable odds.

 

The book itself is very well written. Xhea has a distinctive voice that drew me into the story from the first page and kept me engaged and interested until the very last one. I liked this world and I wouldn’t mind discovering more about it in the next books. And I definitely want to know what happens to Xhea and Shai in the next book.

 

In other words, I will definitely recommend this book to my friends. It’s a must read.

books, Dark fantasy, Fantasy, Horror, Reviews

The Singular & Extraordinary Tale of Mirror & Goliath by Ishbelle Bee.

1 Comment

Stars: 5 out of 5.

 

I fell in love with this book. Absolutely and totally. But this will also be one of the hardest reviews I’ve had to write so far. Not because the book is bad obviously, since I loved it, but because it’s so different from anything else I’ve read recently. Heck, I don’t even know what genre to put this book into. Gothic? Fairy tale? Horror? New weird? It’s all of that and none of it at the same time. The Singular & Extraordinary Tale of Mirror & Goliath is a genre of its own, that can be summarized by three words: Weird, wicked, wonderful.

 

First of all, this book tells several different stories, some shorter, some longer, but all of them are intertwined and influencing each other.

 

The first story is about Mirror who is and isn’t a little girl. When she was 12, her grandfather locked her inside a big clock painted with ladybirds. When Constable Goliath rescued her out of the clock several months later, she was no longer human, but something else entirely. What, nobody knows, not even her. And Goliath himself is not entirely human either. He is a shapeshifter who can become may other things, like a great big bear or a giant eagle.

 

The second story is about Mr. Loveheart, who used to be an ordinary little boy until the day his aunt poisoned his mother, and Mr. Fingers, the king of the underworld, killed his father and took him into his domain. Now Loveheart has eyes black as tar, wears red hearts on all his clothes and isn’t entirely sure that he still has a heart. He is also pretty sure that he is at least half-mad.

 

When Mirror appears in London, Mr. Fingers sends Loveheart to find her, because he wants to eat her heart and capture the soul she holds inside her. The soul from inside the grandfather clock.

 

This books reads like a fairy tale in parts, but not the sanitized and cheerful version of fairy tales that we got used to see from Disney. No it’s the real deal, the Brothers Grim and Andersen tales where the Little Mermaid sacrifices her life to save her Prince in the end and he never even learns that she loved him.

 

It’s also part horror story, because some really horrible and macabre things happen to all the characters. I mean, the little girl who became Mirror died inside that clock before she became something else. And one of Mr. Fingers other “sons” is the famous Jack the Ripper.

 

I loved the language in which this story is written. It’s simple and clear, but beautiful and poetic at the same time. I could really see, feel and smell everything the author described. And those pictures were strangely beautiful and scary at the same time.

 

This whole book was similar to one of those strangely vivid dreams you have sometimes. Dreams that are so real that they cling to you like smoke tendrils even after you wake up and leave you with the feeling that you had touched a secret world in your sleep.

 

I admit that this kind of book is not for everyone. Some will probably hate it or think it’s too weird for them. But I would definitely recommend it to everyone who used to love fairy tales when they were a child. My opinion: definitely a must read and re-read!

PS. I had received and advanced copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

books, Fantasy, paranormal romance, Reviews, Urban fantasy

Hunting Ground (Alpha and Omega book 2) by Patricia Briggs.

1 Comment

Stars: 5 out of 5.

 

I was a bit apprehensive when I started Hunting Ground. I loved Cry Wolf, the first book in the series (and you can read my review here), as well as the short story that told us how Charles and Anna met. I was scared that the next book wouldn’t be as good, and that I would end up disappointed with the series. Thankfully, that didn’t happen. If anything, I loved Hunting Ground even more than Cry Wolf.

 

The events of Hunting Ground take place just a few weeks after the first book, and all the characters are still dealing with the aftermath of their confrontation with the witch that almost destroyed the Marrok and his pack. But they don’t have the luxury to lay low and lick their wounds because the Marrok has decided to make the existence of werewolves known to the general public, just like the fae have done a few decades ago. The advances in science, technology and medicine leave him no choice – it’s just a matter of time before they are discovered anyway, so the Marrok wants to do a preemptive strike and “come out” on his own terms.

 

Since he is the Alpha of the North American pack, his decision is law, but he decides to call a summit in Seattle as a courtesy to the European, African, Russian and British werewolves, because this decision will impact them as well. The werewolves are coming out of the closet and that is not up for discussion, but Bran is willing to offer terms and aid to the other packs to mitigate the backlash of this announcement.

 

Only the spirits tell Charles, in no uncertain terms, that if the Marrok attends the summit, he will die. So after a lot of werewolf-style discussions (aka lots of snarls, fighting and broken furniture) and a little help from Omega wolf Anna, Bran finally decides to send Charles and Anna in his stead…

 

The story itself is interesting enough, and we get to meet a lot of different werewolves, both dominant and submissive, as well as another Omega. It was interesting to learn more about the structure of werewolf packs and their society, as well as the interaction between different Alpha wolves. The author also reveals more details about what makes an Omega so special and why using Omega powers can be bad in some situations.

 

Oh, and the villain was not who I had expected, so that was a nice plot twist.

 

But what sucked me into this series and kept me reading book after book is the relationship between Charles and Anna. I love how wonderfully detailed those two characters are, and how their backgrounds impact their actions and their perception of the world. More importantly, I love how they grow and evolve in this series so far.

 

They are still pretty much newlyweds, and their past experiences don’t make married life easy. Anna had been raped and abused by her first pack and still has problems with intimacy. Charles has been a loner most of his life. He is used to being treated with fear and disgust because he is the Marrok’s enforcer, the cold-blooded killer who will hunt down and eliminate anyone his father orders him to. He has no friends, because he never knows when he would have to kill someone he’d called friend just a few days ago. So it’s easier for him to build a wall and not get attached to anyone.

 

Needless to say, they both struggle with everything that being a couple entrails. But what I love about this series is that they work on these problems. They don’t just go skulk in different corner after a fight or a misunderstanding. They sit down and talk it out until they uncover the underlying problem and agree on how to make things better. They are a couple, yes, but they are also equal partners, and their relationship is based on mutual respect as well as love.

 

I also love the fact that even though Charles is extremely dominant (he is only a little weaker than the Marrok himself, which makes him the second strongest wolf on the American continent) and has a protective streak a mile wide, he never tries to dominate Anna or to smother her with his care and protection “for her own good.”

 

Oh, the impulse is there, and his protective instincts scream at him a lot. He is just wise enough to stop and think about whether locking Anna in their hotel room or forbidding her from joining the hunt is really the best solution or if it’s just his fear talking. And in the end, he always choses to let Anna do whatever would help her become stronger, even if it means letting her participate in a hunt with a bunch of other Alphas.

 

Anna grows tremendously in this book as well. She finally comes to terms with being a werewolf and an Omega. She even starts using her powers to help Charles and her pack. She also faces her own fears and insecurities. Anna is a very calm and level-headed person, some might even call her passive, but she is no doormat. There is a steal core of resolve under that soft exterior. So it is perhaps symbolic that it’s not Charles, the Marrok’s enforcer, who defeats the antagonist in the end of this book, but shy and broken Anna. I loved the way she does it as well. In fact, I loved that whole scene.

 

My only complaint is how one-dimensional the character of the Beast of Gévaudan, Jean Chastel, was. He is too much horrible bad wolf, maniacal murderer. All darkness and no light. He is so evil he reads like a caricature, especially compared to all the other well-developed characters in this book. I think that he would have been much more interesting if Mrs. Briggs had added a bit more ambiguity to his character.

 

All in all, I will definitely recommend Hunting Ground to my friends, and I can’t wait to start the next one in the series.

books, Characters, Fantasy, writing

Authors who changed my life – Sir Terry Pratchett.

5 Comments

I have decided to start a new series of blog post where I would try to share with you some of the authors who had a significant impact on how I perceive the world. Some of them you will probably have heard of or even read, but others might be a discovery.

 

I want to do this because as authors, we don’t just read books for fun – we usually try to learn something from each and every one of them, even if it is not to make the mistakes that particular author made. But some authors go even further than that. Some authors touch something deep inside us. Their work resonates with something in our hearts and minds and ends up changing us.

Sir Terry Pratchett
Sir Terry Pratchett

For me, Terry Pratchett is one such author. I stumbled into his books during a rather bleak period of my life and I can say with absolute certainty that his dry humor pulled me out of some dark places. There were days when reading about the fantastical world of Discworld was the only bright spot in my day.

 

But this is not the only reason I love Terry Pratchett books so much. Yes, they made me laugh out loud sometimes and just chuckle most of the time, but underneath all that humor and sometimes ridiculous premises, they imparted some very insightful grains of wisdom that made me pause and think… then change the way I see the world.

 

So now I want to introduce my readers to this wonderful author who, sadly, has left us in March.  He has led a long and interesting life, as his Wiki page would tell you, and left a legacy of over 60 books. All of them are good and all will make you laugh or cry, but always teach you something. You can look at his Amazon page for the list.

quote-Terry-Pratchett-light-thinks-it-travels-faster-than-anything-44296

Most of Terry Pratchett books take place on Discworld – a world that is literally a flat disk riding on four elephants standing on a great turtle who travels through space in search of a mate. Legends say that when that happens, the world will end, though debates abound on that subject, the main point of contention being whether the turtle is male or female. So of course, the rules of physics don’t really apply in this weird world. Rules of magic do instead, when they feel like it, that is…

 

And this is the first lesson Sir Terry Pratchett taught me as a writer – no matter how fantastical your world is or how ridiculous the rules are, once you have explained them, you have to STICK with them  till the end. Because everything that happens on Discworld makes perfect sense in the limits of that world’s logic. Always.

 

Another big lesson I learned is that characters are paramount, and creating memorable characters is essential to a good story. Now my immersion into the universe of Discworld didn’t start with book one (though I came back and read it eventually). The very first book I read was Guards! Guards! And to me the series about the City Watch of Ankh-Morpork will always remain my favorite. Because it introduced me to some wonderfully broken, twisted, but also noble characters, one of which is a 6 foot tall adopted dwarf named Carrot, who might or might not be the long lost Heir of Ankh-Morpork defunct ruling dynasty.  It also introduced me to Captain Sam Vimes, a jaded, bitter, tired guard who had seen everything bad and dark that his city can throw at him but who still LOVES it and will do anything to protect it and its citizens.

RIP Sir Terry, you will be missed.
RIP Sir Terry, you will be missed.

This is also the series that gave us Men at Arms, in which the city of Ankh-Morpork introduced the Equal Species Act and wonderful characters like Angua the werewolf, Detritus the Troll and Cuddy the Dwarf joined the motley crew.

 

And if following a bunch of guards who try to fight crime in the most dangerous city of the world is not really your cup of tea, I would recommend reading The Wee Free Men. This book shows us that becoming a witch doesn’t involved going to a fancy magical school and waving a wand around for 7 years. A real witch has to have the common sense to see that something is wrong and the courage to do something about it. A real witch says, “This is my town, those are my people, and I will NOT let you harm them.”

 

No matter where you start your acquaintance with Discworld, Terry Pratchett books are guaranteed to make you laugh, make you feel better about your life and your day and teach you a thing or two in the process.

books, murder mystery, Reviews

In the Woods (Dublin Murder Squad Book 1) by Tana French.

2 Comments

Stars: 2 out of 5.

I am rarely upset about a book. I am excited if I love it and usually just sad or even indifferent if I don’t. After all, you can’t like them all. Well, this time I’m pissed off with this book. Really, really pissed off! In the Woods had all the makings of a 5 star, all-time favorite book, but those hopes crashed and burned about 2/3 in. Now I feel cheated, like a kid who was promised candy only to discover a piece of rock under all that bright glittering packaging.

 

I realize that I’m not exactly an expert in this genre – I rarely read murder mysteries. I watch plenty of those on TV though. I had picked In the Woods because the premise seemed interesting: Three kids go to play in the woods. Only one of them is found the next morning, wearing bloody shoes and no memory of what happened. Twenty years later, that kid, now a detective in the murder squad, is forced to come back to this town to investigate the murder of another child in the same woods.

 

Now my understanding of the murder mystery genre is that the author and the reader enter into an unspoken pact – if the reader sticks with the story, the author will reveal the mystery in the end. Most of the questions will be answered and the culprits found. The reader will know who had done it, why and how.

 

The biggest mystery in this book is what happened to Peter and Jamie 20 years ago. The book even begins with that disappearance, and Katie’s murder comes a few chapters later. So that’s the mystery that should be resolved by the end, right?

 

SPOILER ALERT!!!!

 

WRONG.

 

By the time I was maybe 10 pages away from finishing the book, I had the sinking feeling that the author would not answer any of those questions. We will never find out what Rob saw in the woods that night or what became of Peter and Jamie. I had invested hours of my time to read through 400+ pages just to end up with the lukewarm explanation that “some memories are just gone for good, and some mysteries are not meant to be solved.”

 

I realize that in real life that’s what happens about 70% of the time. I mean, just look at the amount of cold cases gathering dust in police archives around the world. However, book logic is different. I don’t want to get invested in a story that won’t give me a resolution. I want to feel a sense of fulfillment after I finish a book, not to feel cheated and frustrated.

 

I’m upset about this because the book has so much potential. It’s wonderfully well-written. The prose is just beautiful, and some passages are just poignantly poetic. The protagonist has a strong and interesting voice that I wanted to follow. And his personal involvement with this place just made me want to finally find out what had happened on that fateful day 20 years ago even more… So I dived into the book head first and fully expected an exceptional read.

 

The alarm bells first went off in my head when Rob decided not to come forward about his identity even when evidence found on the new crime scene linked it to the case of his missing friends. He chose to keep his mouth shut on the fact that Ryan Adams and detective Rob Adams were one and the same person and he reiterated this decision several times during the investigation. I find this decision stupid and irresponsible, because not only does it jeopardize his career, but the whole case as well, since all the evidence he collected will become inadmissible in court if the truth comes out. And his reasoning behind this decision makes less and less sense the further we get into the book.

 

My second problem with In the Woods is Rob’s partner Cassie. The way Tana French portrays her, she is “saint” Cassie who can do no wrong. She always has the right hunch about the case. She is smart and beautiful and has a keen understanding of people. Yet she chooses to stick with Rob no matter what he does. Even after that disastrous night, she isn’t mad at him for the abject way he starts treating her, but because she lost his friendship and somehow she thinks it’s her fault. Really? Hot, smart and sassy girl who is extremely devoted to her abusive boyfriend / friend. Hello trope!

 

But even though I didn’t like Cassie and had a tough time with some of Rob’s decisions, the story would still have gotten a 4 star review if the author had kept her end of the bargain and actually given me and ending. The fact that it didn’t happen was just the last nail in the coffin lid.

 

I’m upset. I won’t recommend this book. I had planned to read the next one in the Dublin Murder Squad series, but I have zero motivation to do that now.

 

Characters, movies, random musings, tv shows, writing, writing advice

The new Avengers or the importance of laughter even in dire situations.

Leave a comment
Laughter can keep darkness at bay, even if you are laughing through tears.
Laughter can keep darkness at bay, even if you are laughing through tears.

I went to see The Avengers: Age of Ultron this weekend and I absolutely loved it! But this blog post is not a movie review, even though I would love to write one of those. No, this movie made me remember why I love Joss Whedon’s work so much. It’s because no matter how grim things get, or how uneven the odds the protagonists face, they never lose their sense of humor.

 

So that is what I would like to talk about today – the importance of laughter when writing stories, even the dark and dreary ones… especially the dark and dreary ones. Because laughter provides much needed respite and a ray of light in the otherwise total darkness. It also often serves to amplify the impact of that darkness much better than bucket-loads of angst would.

 

Now, I need to point out that by laughter I don’t mean below the belt jokes, fart noises and other “comic relief” efforts like the introduction of Jar Jar Binks to the Star Wars universe (shudders, Jar Jar deserves a long and painful death). I’m not saying that this kind of humor doesn’t have its place, but I’m not a fan or the intended audience it seems.

 

However, Buffy the Vampire Slayer still remains one of my favorite TV Series of all times, because it addressed so many difficult, dark and sometimes controversial issues, and it did that with respect, finesse and yes, humor. Did the humor diminish the show somehow? Lessen the impact of the often horrible things that followed? Not in the least. Yes, Buffy can joke and say, “Apocalypse? We’ve all been there,” but that doesn’t lessen her sacrifice at the end of Season 5, or the depth of her despair after she is brought back to life in Season 6. The fact that all those characters can still joke about their life and smile after the horrible things all of them went through in this show actually makes them seem much more human and endearing.

Spike and his dry humor.
Spike and his dry humor.

 

And I think that’s the trend in all of Joss Whedon projects: his characters try to cheer each other up and joke about their circumstances no matter how bleak they are, because it beats curling up in a ball and weeping. Joss Whedon creates strong and memorable characters. They face danger square on, they fight it, they get bruised and bent out of shape, but they never ever break. And humor has a big part in that.

 

The Firefly episode when Mal and Wash are tortured and Mal tries to keep Wash’s mind off the pain by making him jealous of his relationship with Zoe is still one of my favorites (though I love all of them dearly). Yes, the banter between the two of them is hilarious, but it also serves to underline the horror they are going through, as well as showing us exactly how far Mal would go to protect his people. Do I love Mal less for joking about something like this? No, I love him even more for ignoring his pain and trying to make sure Wash pulls through the ordeal.

mal and wash

This is also why the scene in the new Avengers where Tony Stark cracks jokes while trying to pound the Hulk unconscious before he levels a city resonated more with me than most of the scenes with Katniss in Mokingjay. And I still remember Loki’s speech just before the Hulk pounds him into the floor in the first Avengers, but I forgot most of what happened in the Hunger Games…

 

Maybe I’m just wired that way, but humor works much better for me than all the doom and gloom in the world ever could. Not to mention that even “humorous” books can address some pretty darn important themes and dark problems. Just read most of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books if you don’t believe me.

 

So, what does this loooooong love letter to Joss Whedon has to do with writing better stories, you might ask? The lesson I learned from Whedon’s work is that laughter can help get even the most serious message across much easier than angst. Unfortunately, it’s also so very hard to do just right, without falling into cheap laughs and fart jokes. It’s also a skill that today’s TV series, movies and books sorely miss, so when I find someone who can wield laughter like a surgical scalpel, I cherish every single thing they create like so many gems.