Books 51-52
Liar City by Allie Therin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Thanks to Netgalley for the arc of this one. This takes the question of what if some humans were to mutate and develop the psychic ability of pure empathy? As much as I'd love to think we'd treat them like Deanna Troi in Star Trek but this novel is a much more likely outcome: we'd demonize and hunt them.
Obvious parallels exist between the empaths and any marginalized groups you care to name which makes this occasionally hard to read for me. If I want to watch a government target and torment people while claiming it's for our own good, I'll turn on the news. BUT there is also an importance to this sort of social commentary and for the most part Liar City does it well.
The story posits that empaths are SO empathetic that the mere thought of violence can reduce them to tears or worse. Our main point of view character is Reece, who like all empaths is so disturbed by violence he drives the speed limit, won't use the phone while driving, can't even turn on a football game due to the violence. Like all empaths he wears gloves developed by governmental agencies to keep him from accidentally touching and reading someone. Like all empaths, he's accused of being a mind raper and hate groups use their online and media power to point out 'what if they can control our minds?' (Uh, we'd have peace on earth?)
Unlike all empaths, Reece has a sister, Jamey, who is a Seattle homicide detective and he sometimes helps her to his own detriment. Also unlike all empaths he's often in the news shooting off his mouth without thinking anything through and making everything worse. In fact, his tendency to do that made me think thoughts that would probably have rendered him unconscious. Dude needs his lips sewn shut.
When he stumbles into a crime scene Jamey tried to keep him from, a monstrous murder of Senator Hathaway and her companions, Reece is pulled into something no empath should be part of. Hathaway was the writer of a bill that would further destroy empath rights and now she's on the cusp of being a martyr to the cause. Stone Solutions and its CEO Cedric Stone intend to capitalize on that (and runaway capitalism is also a social commentary in this). Reece doesn't listen to Jamey to stay away (because he never listens to anyone).
As a result, The Dead Man has him in his sights. The Dead Man, Evan Grayson, is...well we never truly know, is he part of a government shadow organization? Is he above all of that? He's certainly above the FBI and Stone Solutions though he works with and is feared by both. As far as Jamey is concerned Reece should be terrified of this empath hunter. Reece thought he was an urban legend.
Grayson is neither of those things exactly but is at the same time both. Since Reece doesn't listen, Grayson finds him and we're treated to the weirdest cop-buddy bromance that shouldn't work in the least. But it does.
As much as I want to slap Reece around the head because he keeps talking and making things worse when any sane man would keep his mouth shut (seriously Reece is kind of annoying) I am amazed at how Therin made me care about him. Also the way Grayson kept calling him Care Bear was killing me in the best way.
The mystery aspect of it was well done as well. There are some truly interesting parallels between Jamey and Grayson along with the truth behind the empathy mutation that I won't spoil but they are nice payoffs in the story.
My only quibble is at 400 pages it's a bit long. I do think there are places that it could have been tightened up, a little less of Reece acting like a fool with no self preservation skills at all but that is a very minor quibble. I want to see these guys again.
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Angel Vol. 1: Being Human by Bryan Edward Hill
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
This is hard to review for me and was a 2.5 read but I rounded up mostly because a lot of my disappointment was in the idea of the reboot itself. I've been around the comic book world for fifty years now so I know the reboots are inevitable and often I'm left cold by them. This one almost made it.
I have a hard cover 20th anniversary volume from the library which is killing me because how is it so long already? And worse I'm pretty sure I have all these in individual comics around my place but never finished them because I just wasn't sure i liked the idea behind this reboot. Angel isn't pulled out of his angst and sent on his redemption arc by Buffy in this which I'm oddly okay with. We meet him already trying to redeem himself on his own.
What I didn't care for was there seems to be no Darla and she was important obviously. This Angel in the past seems to be almost poetic and very un-Angelus like. We do get several flash backs which have nothing to do with anything in this volume. They'll probably crop up later.
This Angel has friends. He's buddies with Lilith, yes that Lilith,Adam's first wife turned monster (though in this she seems to have existed before the world). Lilith is trying to guide him to his destiny which does include Fred, Gunn and Buffy. First up is Fred, insane but the key to stopping this arc's baddie: an internet demon.
There are things they're trying to say about GenZ and the Millennials with their social media obsessions and distorted self-image. But it's far too rushed. There could have been so much more they could have done with this before Angel stops it. And he stops it way too easily because this Angel uses magic... (I always did wonder why vampires never did use it. They have all the time in the world to get good at it).
The art is decent but there is something about this that just didn't click for me (that much I remembered from my original reading as I had all the Buffyverse titles removed from my pull list far later than I should have)
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